Meta through SheMeansBusiness, YCAB Foundation, and Rahasia Gadis in the Karya Perempuan 2.0 program held a webinar for Karya Perempuan 17 Heroes with the theme “Realizing Financial Freedom for Women”. This event is in line with the government’s plan for the G20 Presidency and is one of the Karya Perempuan programs that aim to empower womenpreneurs.“Recover Faster, Rise Stronger” was the theme of the 77th anniversary of Indonesia’s Independence Day. This theme serves as a reminder and motivation to us, while many people are still struggling amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Economic acceleration requires equality between women and men, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship and financial independence. Women’s participation in the MSME sector needs to be empowered and supported due to MSMEs make up more than 90 percent of businesses, of which 65 percent are women-owned. This makes women one of the important driving factors in the economic development and recovery of Indonesia. However, there are still many challenges such as capital and resource constraints, and women’s financial literacy is still relatively low.
Seeing this phenomenon, Meta through SheMeansBusiness, YCAB Foundation, and Rahasia Gadis in the Karya Perempuan 2.0 program held a webinar for Karya Perempuan 17 Heroes with the theme “Realizing Financial Freedom for Women”. This event is in line with the government’s plan for the G20 Presidency and is one of the Karya Perempuan programs that aim to empower womenpreneurs. This webinar was held via Zoom on Thursday, August 25, 2022.
17 women entrepreneurs of MSMEs were selected and are expected to inspire and motivate other women to be financially independent. Through Karya Perempuan, women entrepreneurs of SMEs are given space to market their products through the Karya Perempuan Catalog on Whatsapp Business. This program also provides digital marketing and digital-based financial literacy training that can be accessed using Ibu Harta’s WhatsApp Chat Bot, where training can be done anytime and anywhere. Moreover, in its second year, Karya Perempuan also collaborated with the Rahasia Gadis community, by providing training to 70 Rahasia Gadis Leaders to grow young women’s entrepreneurship skills and digital literacy.
According to one of the beneficiaries, Novi Kurnia, business owner @abonkokipurbalingga, “With the knowledge of risk and uncertainty management in doing business, I was also taught to optimize Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp Business features”. One of Rahasia Gadis Leaders, Ni Lu Putu said, “Karya Perempuan 2.0 has an exact goal for women entrepreneurs in Indonesia. Through this webinar, I want the stories to inspire other women!”.
Deputy for Entrepreneurship of the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, Ir. Siti Azizah, MBA said that women entrepreneurs face many challenges and they are complex. “Karya Perempuan 2.0 is in line with our mission to empower women’s MSMEs and support economic equity. We strongly encourage MSME actors to be able to adopt digital financial technology because it will transform MSMEs from unbankable to bankable from unfeasible to feasible.”
“For this reason, women empowerment is a very important strategy in increasing the role of women in increasing their potential to be more independent and able to work. Let’s use this webinar as a shared spirit to work together in creating excellent womenpreneurs to empower women so that they can be financially independent.” said Ir. Siti Azizah, MBA.
Veronica Colondam also expressed the same thing. “The problems of women entrepreneurs revolve around the issue of unmet basic needs leading to high levels of poverty. This is exacerbated by the gender gap, limited time for self-development, and limited access to take advantage of opportunities and develop skills. Equipping women entrepreneurs with digital economy skills will be very useful for themselves and the country’s economic recovery,” concluded the CEO and YCAB Foundation.
Increasing financial literacy is an absolute thing to do to support Indonesian women so that they can achieve financial independence. “Our mission with the government is to accelerate the digital transformation of business owners in Indonesia where more than 50% of MSMEs are owned by women. Meta will continue to promote financial independence for every individual. Through this webinar, we hope to inspire many Indonesian women to become financially independent. We want to open access to financial and digital literacy, and provide development training so women entrepreneurs can be empowered,” said Dessy Sukendar as Meta Policy Program Manager in Indonesia.
Within its first year, the Karya Perempuan program had an impact on 590 women from 50 cities and districts in Indonesia, while in the second year, it affected 1,634 women in 119 cities and neighborhoods in Indonesia. This program aims to empower Indonesian MSMEs in building digital marketing and financial literacy skills. The participants received digital marketing training by optimizing the features of Facebook Business, Instagram Business, and WhatsApp Business. In addition to that, after participating in the training through the “Ibu Harta” WhatsApp Chatbot, participants were given business capital and business assistance so that womenpreneurs could recover and their businesses continued to rise and grow.