Enterprising women rewarded in ‘Celebration of Resilience’ event
THE inaugural event in the brand-new venue The Apex, in Tallaght Enterprise Centre, hosted the women who took part in the WEBNET+ programme, who gathered to receive their awards and acknowledge the success at the programme’s final event.
The event was themed as ‘A Wonderful Celebration of Resilience’ and for a lot of the women it was their first time to meet face to face and it was the last three groups of participants of the WEBNET+ programme receiving certificates, achieving QQI accredited awards in career-planning and start your own business.
WEBNET+ is an initiative of Partas and is co-funded by the Irish Government and the European Social Fund as part of the Programme for Employability, Inclusion and Learning 2014-2020.
To date, 123 women have engaged with WEBNET+ since it began in 2019.
Programme Manager Noreen Keegan Kavanagh said: ‘that coming together was a long overdue celebration. Six weeks after the first group commenced training in February 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic struck, forcing the world into a lockdown situation.
“Within three weeks the training had moved online and has remained there for the duration of the programme. During that time, 123 women attended the training online, 110 women successfully completed QQI Level 4 Career Planning award and 79 successfully completed QQI Level 5 Start Your Own Business award. In total, 189 awards have been completed. Congrat-ulations to you all.”
Also at the event, Mayor Emma Murphy: ‘I am delighted to hear that the WEBNET+ programme is tackling the gender gap in self-employment in Tallaght and surrounding areas.
“It is incredible that 37 new businesses have been created by the women from the WEBNET+ programme – 13 women returned to the work force and 11 reported improvement in their current labour status getting promotions, finding a better job or going from part-time to full-time employment.
“Many of those women who are now self-employed and working were unemployed or women who were not actively seeking work but were in the home rearing children or caring for others. For many other women on the programme, whatever their decision going forward, they now have the skills, confidence and network to develop, test and bring to the market any business idea’.
Five of the WEBNET+ participants, Emma Keogh EQUIEIRE, Anna O’Neill, Katita Pellegrini-Fogarty from Evolve4Business, Catherine Conway, Artist and Alessandra Cordeiro of Skill Ireland Training made enthusiastic presentations, and talked about their experience on the WEBNET+ programme.
