A two-day exhibition held here under the auspices of Women Business Development Centre (WBDC), with the theme 'Youth and Women Empowerment', concluded here on Saturday. The exhibition was participated by the students of public and private sector universities and was attended by a large number of youth and women entrepreneurs. A large of girl students from different educational institutions also visited the show.
Students of Frontier Women University, Iqra University, Institute of Management Sciences (IMS) and Department of Fine Arts and Social Work University of Peshawar had established their stalls and put their products on display in the exhibition. The participants of the exhibition were awarded certificates and one stall was declared best stall.
President of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCI), Usman Bashir Bilour, provincial chief of Smeda Javed Iqbal Khattak, Director Iqra University Obaidullah and Project Manager of WBDC, Nabila Farman, were also present on the occasion. The president of Sarhad Chamber said that the province has no lack of talent. However, thing that is required is the promotion of the soft image of the province and its people.
He said that during last three years the people and business community of the province have rendered big sacrifices. He said that the province is facing difficult situation since 1979. He said that the chamber is making efforts for promotion of soft image of the province and termed the holding of such events a step forward in this regard.
He said that a state-of-the-art display centre would be established in the chamber and urged the youth entrepreneurs to take benefit of the online system of the chamber. He urged the students to come out of the theory and take initiatives for practical measures to put the province on the right track.
Usman said that a liberal government is working in the working, saying the conservative policies of the previous government have played havoc with the province. He said that the province is exporting goods worth $5 billion and have further capacity of $1 billion for which new markets would be found. He offered full co-operation to the youth entrepreneurs in export to any country of the world.
He urged the management of the Women Business Development Centre for arranging such an exhibition on large and professional level. He said that women chamber in the province has also been made effective and asked them to use the facility of the chamber. He announced a prize of Rs 5000/- to each stall holder of the exhibition. Provincial chief Smeda said that the centre had been established with the objective of the promotion of the entrepreneurship of women and bringing their informal businesses to formal sectors.
He said that the centre besides facilitating women entrepreneurs would also encourage new entrepreneurs through displaying their products to promote their businesses. The third component of the centre, he said, was the economic empowerment of youth and women.
The centre provides a complete system including the capacity building, business management and utilising of their market talent. He said that the centre is working with the universities, colleges and schools for the promotion of the women entrepreneurship.
Javed said that the event is not the last one and would be made a regular feature of the centre to provide platform to the women entrepreneurs. He said that the participants of the exhibition would be given certificates and best stall would be awarded cash prize.
Director, Iqra University, Obaidullah said that holding of such events would improve the image of the province and urged the youth not to abandon hopes. He said that holding of such events encourages the youth and increase their confidence and called for follow the holding of such events. He offered full co-operation to the centre on behalf of Iqra University in this regard.