Empowering Women’s Enterprises and Networks with Women’s Economic Council and Common Thread Cooperative
Battered Women’s Support Services is so pleased to partner with Common Thread Cooperative in Empowering Women’s Enterprises and Networks.
Empowering Women’s Enterprises and Networks is an exciting new project by Women’s Economic Council.
Empowering Women’s Enterprises and Networks is a unique national clustering project that brings together women from many different segments of the Canadian population (Aboriginal, Refugee, Immigrant and mainstream). As part of the British Columbia cluster Battered Women’s Support Services, Common Thread Cooperative in partnership with Women’s Economic Council we seek to empower women to build their enterprises, professional networks, capacities and opportunities for long term sustainability and economic security. We join three other Clusters are in St.John’s NL, Thunder Bay, ON and Winnipeg, MB.
As a three-year national initiative we will focus on the challenges experienced by women’s organizations and groups that assist women living in poverty, isolated and representative of marginalized segments of the population to enter and remain in the labour market through self-employment initiatives, co-operatives, social enterprises or other supportive activities, such as financial literacy, pre-employment programs or other capacity building efforts.
We also see the Cluster project as an amazing opportunity to encourage women’s economic development in the context of peak oil, drawing on Indigenous Women’s leadership, Immigrant and Refugee women’s experiences and the empowerment of women who are survivors of violence and other forms of oppression.
With the emphasis on community resilience and sustainability, the project will serve as a conduit for the sharing of ideas, approaches, best practices, capacity and skill building, successes and learning across the country. Women’s Economic Council also intends to use this project to heighten awareness and support of women’s community economic development as a realistic and viable economic option for women in Canada.
Each Cluster site will use unique approaches and applications that work best for the women of the region and/or community. We know that issues in our region include peak oil, food security, homelessness, poverty, vulnerability to violence, lack of experience and knowledge about the workings of the Canadian ‘marketplace’, language barriers, access to health resources, multiple challenges for those traumatized by colonization, protracted experience in refugee camps, settlement challenges for Refugee and Immigrant women, isolation as senior women and many other silent forms of suffering.
Our work is vibrant and underway. Here’s more about our partners:
