Women’s Empowerment Project

The Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP) trains entrepreneurs, over two years, with the goal to increase their decision-making capacity and social and economic well-being through a holistic and unique approach of both personal and economic empowerment.

The WEP includes group workshops, individualized coaching sessions about their businesses, optional monthly counseling with a clinical psychologist, running a savings and lending group, the opportunity to apply for seed money and other further holistic support activities.

The WEP is implemented in two areas: San Ramon, an urban community just outside of San Salvador the capital of El Salvador, and Tepecoyo, a rural region that lacks access to infrastructure, rarely receives support from governmental or nongovernmental projects and experiences widespread intergenerational poverty.

Over two years, 60 entrepreneurs participate in monthly workshops, individual coaching sessions on business development and management, psychosocial support and/or optional monthly counseling with a licensed clinical psychologist. Personal empowerment workshops focus on enhancing decision-making capacity, self-awareness, interpersonal awareness, goal-setting and gender equity. Workshop topics on economic empowerment relate to business management, accounting, bookkeeping, cost analysis and business plan development. Each year, entrepreneurs also submit a proposal and receive seed money to invest in their businesses.

On a monthly basis, entrepreneurs facilitate a savings and lending group to deposit their individual savings, borrow money and repay with interest, thereby making the collective fund grow. Entrepreneurs manage the fund, while PV staff provide support.

Entrepreneurs are often confined by a cycle of poverty, intergenerational trauma, gender-based violence and a lack of educational opportunities. By removing barriers to education and cultivating a space where women can process trauma, PV creates opportunities for entrepreneurs to improve their livelihoods, strengthen their income-generating skills and build better futures for themselves and their communities.