Crowds continued to pour on the second day of the Women Business Development Centre (WBDC) "Summer Trade Fair-II" as visitors flocked the venue, said enthusiastic notes by women entrepreneurs, whose put their innovative artwork on display at three-day business expo.
"We anticipated a good response from city residents as the fair is practically exhibiting every possible product," said a young emerging entrepreneur Faiza Atif, branding with Smart collection accessories. She said that the fair also provides a platform for meaningful interaction with corporates, consumers and small-scale industries."
The WBDC, in collaboration with Tourism Co-operation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organises a three-day exhibition, aimed at develop market linkages and promotion of skilled work of women entrepreneurs hailing from different backgrounds and areas. The women hailing from DI.Khan, Chitral, Swat, Mardan, Charssada, Peshawar, Islamabad, Haripur, Multan, Bahawalpur, and other parts of the country, exhibited their handicraft at the exhibition.
As traditional embroidery work of Multan is well-known across the country, it hasn't promoted and picked up much due to lack of financing and other challenges of skilled women, said a lady, attached with business field for last ten year.
Rukshana from Haripur, said she started her business at house based level, mostly focus on handmade embroidery stuffs, which immensely encourage her to promote business at a large scale. The flood-hit women also displayed their creative skilled work at the exhibition. A 20 year old, young entrepreneur from district Nowshera Nadia said that despite the eagerness to come to business field, most of female are unable, because of financial and other social challenges. "I am much enthusiastic to join the business field, which makes me economically more empower and supportive for rest of my family members," she added.
With a little financial support and encouragement by family, a small entrepreneur hailing from Saidu Sharif, Swat, she is running a small vocational training centre, to give basic skill of stitching of cloths, embroidery and other creative work. "Women are still facing enormous difficulties to join business field hailing from Swat, whereas the financial obstacles fade their eagerness" she maintained.
For the economic empowerment of women, she said financial support is needed first to start their businesses at own level, as she said, Swat after restoration of normalcy, still need a huge financial support, particular to women for their economic empowerment.