The US Department of State launched this Thursday the call for a course on-line and free entrepreneurship program promoted by the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE). It is the second time that this program is launched in Cuba, with the support of the Embassy American in Havana, and its objective is to advise “the development of business projects that are led by women.
20 scholars from all over the Island, chosen by the Heroikka Association – a Spanish company dedicated to women’s “empowerment” – will enjoy the educational resources that AWE offers, the advice of mentors and the communication with other women entrepreneurs through the “existing exchange programs”.
According to the call, AWE is part of the Initiative for the Development and Global Prosperity of Women, conceived by Washington so that 50 million women “around the world by 2025” reach their “economic potential”, “stability, security and prosperity”. The application forms They are open from March 7 to March 28.
One of the beneficiaries of the first launch of the program, the entrepreneur and journalist from Villa Clara Yinet Jiménez, exposed at the end of 2022 the characteristics of the AWE course and pointed out that the learning would be in charge of the Thunderbird Business School, in the USA, under a program called DreamBuilder.
AWE’s support was viewed with suspicion by the Cuban government, which has limited the options of the private sector and led to the closure of numerous initiatives
Among the participants in the first AWE course are project managers such as Humidores Duyos –which offers boxes for storing tobacco to embassies and companies–, the El Bazar de Tito store, La Casa del Jabón, the Casa Dagda hostel, the Decoluz artisan lamps and the audiovisual company Wajiros Films.
According to Jiménez, the launch of the first AWE course on the island caused a controversy, since several independent media outlets accused the participants in the first program of seeking ways to leave the country through State Department resources, when the call specified It was an online course.
In addition, AWE’s support was viewed with suspicion by the Cuban government, which has limited the options of the private sector and led to the closure of numerous initiatives. Jiménez herself, who runs a YouTube channel and had a small advertising consulting agency, ended up going into exile in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the end of 2022.
Other US-based institutions have offered opportunities to both Cuban residents on the island and exiles. It is the case of the scholarship Cuban American Alliance for Leadership and Education, also known as Pinos Nuevos, which offers $10,000 to students born on the island or of Cuban descent for university studies.
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