Today, women from different parts of the country gathered at the Inspiration Centre's Conference room for a 1-day seminar on Women's Economic Empowerment.
It's an accepted fact that in Belizean society - like the rest of the world - gender inequality prevents women from accessing the same opportunities as men in political, social and economic spheres.
The Chilean Government offered to provide their knowledge and experience in creating environments that foster gender parity, and they teamed up with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Development Program in Belize.
We stopped by the seminar to find out what those Chilean strategies are to increase women's economic empowerment. Here's what the facilitators told us:
Karen Bernard, Deputy Resident Rep., UNDP
"This workshop was a kind proposal from Chile, from our colleagues from the Chilean Government, particularly Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chile which has a gender department. They were organizing similar workshop in El Salvador and they were very interested in also come to Belize to share with Belizean women specifically. The purpose of the workshop is to talk about how women can become more involve in business, possibly even exporting to some degree and how women can become empowered to engage more fully in all these types of activities which they may have interest in, they may have talents for."
"We also have presentation by Miss Christine Smith of BETEC, very interesting presentation from the Belizean perspective and talking about the work that BELTRAIDE does which is very valuable work. We have also coming up some discussions by Belizean business women and sharing their experiences, looking at some of what they've leant in establishing their businesses and some of the obstacles that they face and how they address it and so really the purpose of this seminar is to have an exchange between Chileans and Belizeans - about how women can become entrepreneurs, how women can have their own businesses and what kind of support women would need to do that."
"There are a number of challenges and one that has been mentioned that Belizean women face is balancing the family commitments to the requirements of being out there working in the businesses world. So that in fact is also a challenge that women in many countries face - how you ca organize all of your multiple responsibilities and to be a business woman, but then also be a mother, be a wife - how well all of these things can fit together. Support from the family is needed. Many men are very supportive and aware of that as well."
H.E. Maria Ines Ruz, Chilean Ambassador to Belize
"Belize and Chile are in the process of development of political policies to benefit both countries. They are democratic countries and that is the initiative that both of them are right now present."
"We believe that we have use best practices and we have lesson learnt that we can share with Belize and this is why we want to share with Belize our best practices and the lesson learnt. Of course we make mistakes along our journey, but we correct the mistakes and we learn from the mistakes."
Chile's Office of International Economic Relations (DIRECON) led the seminar.
