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Sunday, September 02, 2018

7^th TVET & Employment Round Table was organized by OSAA and Help INGO in coordination with Herat DoLSA in Women Economic and Services Cooperative hall on 02 September 2018.

Mrs. Monisah Hasan Zadah, Cultural and Social Affairs Deputy of Herat Governor’s Office, the head and representatives of Herat DoLSA, Afghanistan Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry / AWCCI-West Zone board of directors, representatives of National Union of Craftsmen, Herat National Labor Union, Agriculture Institute of Herat, Rural Women Economic Empowerment Program, Women Economic-Services Cooperative, War Child UK, AWCCI, DACAAR, WFP, Help, OSAA, CRDSA, GP, FAO, partner companies and CSOs participated in this Round Table.

The 7^th TVET & Employment Round Table in Herat province was organized to introduce services and facilities of Afghanistan Women Chamber of Commerce & Industry / West Zone and other organizations to support and create jobs for female entrepreneurs and TVET graduates.

At the outset, Mrs. Monisa Hasanzada, Cultural and Social Affairs Deputy of Herat Governor’s Office, expressed her happiness for such effective programs being organized to empower women. Mrs. Hasanzada appreciated organizations working toward talent detection, capacity building and job facilitation for women. She asked experienced women to cooperate with amateur women in business and support them with their guidance in order to make them achieve more successes.

Then Mr. Mohammad Ali Soroosh, Help Program Director, mentioned the main reasons why TVET & Employment Round Table has been initiated:

1. Establish a network connecting institutions, I/NGOs and organizations active in offering TVET and employment services;
2. Highlight the role of TVET in job creation and economic growth in the country;
3. Promote and increase the cooperation among organizations offering TVET and employment services;
4. Guarantee sustainable government and private sectors’ financial support for TVET and employment services programs.

Meanwhile, he mentioned the main agendas of previous six Round Tables as follow:

• Introduction of goals, participants, suggestions on Round Table and building a network among stakeholders;
• Presenting the findings of the research book published by Herat Council of Experts on “Herat investment and employment opportunities”;
• Introduction of local and international NGOs and their current TVET and employment services activities;
• Introduction of employment services centers in Herat province, improving cooperation between these centers and building synergy;
• Discussing ideas and recommendations on job creation to National Labor Conference;
• Collecting ideas and recommendations and building a synergy among related government departments and NGOs to carry out this year’s research on marketable vocations in Herat city and districts levels.

Then, He mentioned the previous Round Tables’ achievements as follow: a network was created among implementers of TVET and Employment programs, increased the cooperation among I/NGOs and government depts., built synergy among employment services centers, presented comments and recommendations of different sectors in National Labor Conference and carried out a comprehensive research on marketable vocations.

Then, Mrs, Azizi, Executive Manager of AWCCI-West Zone, presented the introduction of AWCCI to the participants. At the beginning, she said that AWCCI-West Zone was officially inaugurated on February 27, 2018 with presence of Mr. M. Asef Rahimi, Herat Governor, Mrs. Hasanzada, Cultural and Social Affairs Deputy of Herat Governor Office, Mrs. Manizha Wameq, Head of AWCCI in Kabul, and her colleagues, a number of businesswomen, CSOs and commercial representatives and the board of directors for West Zone was selected.

Following, Mrs. Maryam Jamiualahmadi, head of AWCCI in West Zone, talked about the services of AWCCI for female graduates of TVET and businesswomen.

She said, “We want to unify businesswomen in order to solve their problems and we kindly ask I/NGOs working in this field to have contact with our office and introduce TVET graduates to us so that they can join capacity building and consultancy programs of AWCCI.” She added that the members of this office have enough experience and skills so can cooperate and guide new businesswomen in their small businesses.

Then, Mrs. Susan Behbodzada, Advocacy Deputy of AWCCI, talked about problems and recommendations of this organization. She said, “AWCCI provides advocacy and other relevant services to all businesswomen in Afghanistan in order to promote its members economic benefits and create better business environment for women. AWCCI also tries to reflect businesswomen ideas on to policies and economic regulations of Afghanistan.”

Mrs. Behbodzada mentioned services, problems and recommendations of AWCCI to promote economic conditions of businesswomen as following:

• Supporting job creation for women and TVET graduates;
• Offering specialized business training for women (three to six month classes);
• Offering Business Management courses by AWCCI;
• Organizing seasonal exhibitions on TVET and businesswomen products with different activities;
• Offering marketing courses and marketing for products;
• Organizing training by inviting experts from abroad to improve work conditions and create more jobs;
• Cooperation in payment of rent for first floor of Khadija-tul-kobra Market and developing of TVET activities and products of women like tailoring and carpet weaving;
• Attracting attention to the problems of Carpet Town;
• Facilitating training in packaging and marketing for women products.

After that, participants presented their comments and recommendations regarding agenda. The partner I/NGOs declared their support to AWCCI in West Zone and mentioned their cooperation in organizing exhibitions for the growth of women businesses, training and providing opportunities for businesswomen in the market.

Then, Mrs. Elaha Banaey, OSAA director, talked about the services for the graduates of TVET programs, tracer study and how to enter to the market.

Meanwhile, Mr. Yazdanpanah, Agriculture Institute representative, talked about the majors being offering in this institute and their relation to TVET programs. He also said that in near future TVET courses will be offered in this institute.

Mr. Wasim, WFP representative, talked about the activities of this organization for businesswomen and TVET graduates. He added that in near future WFP will start a new project with private sector to provide more support to female graduates of TVET courses.

At the end, Mr. Abdul Qayoum Afghan, head of Herat DoLSA, talked on activities of Herat DoLSA for women in Herat province and wrapped up the meeting. At the outset, while he expresses his happiness in setting up AWCCI in West Zone, congratulated this initiative to the women of Herat province.

He added that since AWCCI was established, businesswomen and female graduates of TVET courses have had a lot of achievements. He also said that he is that many projects for women have been implemented in Herat province.

Finally, he said that the properties of Herat DoLSA should be available for businesswomen to use them for their commercial activities.

At the end, he suggested that all female graduates of TVET courses should be introduced to AWCCI in order to receive any support from this organization and added that the businesswomen should consider the quality of their products and services so that better marketing is done for them in the market.

Source: OSAA Project Unit.