ASALA finishes 90 training hours in financial literacy

The Palestinian Businesswomen Association – Asala, finished on Tuesday the first training course, titled "Financial Literacy Training”, which is within the training program implemented by the association within the framework of the project of Social Innovation in the Agri-food sector to empower women in the Mediterranean region, InnovAgroWoMed. The training was for 90 training hours.

The aim of the training was to provide the beneficiaries of the InnovAgroWoMed project with the skills necessary to manage their future projects financially, determining revenues, expenses, setting budgets for these projects, and financial management that would enable them to achieve profits for their projects, as well as take advantage of the opportunities available to them  as women entrepreneurs.

The training also touched on debts management, loans and how to benefit from them as much as possible, in addition to the basic rules for establishing and managing cooperatives, as well as obtaining the necessary financing for them.

The training, which spanned over three weeks, was implemented in the city of Ramallah. The training included 33 women from the governorates of Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Tulkarm.

One of the participants in the training, Samah Sawalha, said: "The financial literacy training was an excellent opportunity to acquire financial skills to enable me to establish my project, manage it and set a plan to develop it. The skills I acquired will help me determine my expenses, income, find balance between them and achieve profits as it should.”

The Program Manager at Asala, Mrs. Merna Ziadeh said that this training is one of the most important and useful trainings provided by the association to the beneficiaries, as it deals with the basic skills that they need to manage their projects financially and achieve sustainability, in addition to helping them develop their abilities to attract opportunities that help establish their works and develop them.

Asala will also work during the coming period to complete the implementation of this training program, which aims to enhance labor participation and entrepreneurship among women in Palestine, by increasing knowledge of the possibilities in the agri-food sector.

It is worth mentioning that the InnovAgroWoMed project is 87% funded by the European Union and is implemented through the Cross-Border Cooperation Program in the Mediterranean in 4 countries: Tunisia, Italy, Spain and Palestine. It mainly aims to reduce poverty rates and achieve social inclusion through innovative solutions to develop the percentage of women's participation in the agri-food sector, whether as workers, employees or entrepreneurs in the food industries sector.