Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you today.
My name is Helen Bobiwash. My spirit name is She Who Mends Broken Paths. I am an Anishinabe kwe, a member of the Thessalon First Nation. I am an FCPA, an entrepreneur who has operated my own independent accounting service for almost 25 years, and a member of the investment committee of the Indigenous Growth Fund. I join you today from N'Swakamok, the city of Greater Sudbury, situated in the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory.
Women face barriers to entrepreneurship. Indigenous entrepreneurs also face barriers. When the two demographics intersect, the barriers are exponential for indigenous women entrepreneurs. I'm going to share two barriers with you this morning.
First, indigenous women are the caregivers in our communities, and this competes with our entrepreneurial activity for our time and attention. Caregiving is a sacred responsibility that aided the survival of our people. We give birth to and raise children, and we care not only for those we give birth to but others in need of care, including aging family members. As much as we lovingly take on this role, caregiving competes with our entrepreneurial activities for our time and attention. I often travel to meet with clients. When my son was born, he and a sitter travelled with me. When he reached school age, I limited my travel to keep my son in school and be available for him. This limited my earning potential. It is an ongoing balancing act to take care of our family and business responsibilities, and it causes stress. Services provided to indigenous women entrepreneurs must accommodate our family status.
Second, there are barriers associated with the scale of businesses started by indigenous women. Many start small, even micro, businesses. We tend to start part-time or home-based businesses. This allows us to start our business with available financial resources and to be available for our family and community responsibilities. The micro nature of indigenous women-owned businesses limits our access to financing, because conventional financing policies exclude part-time or home-based businesses.
The WES ecosystem fund provided funding to the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association, or NACCA, for an indigenous women entrepreneurship program. It provided options for indigenous women to access micro loans, training and business supports. Access to these supports must continue.
Next, I offer two recommendations to further support indigenous women entrepreneurs.
My first recommendation is to provide trauma-informed services. Indigenous women experience trauma that has detrimental implications for them, their families and communities, and their business operations. Statistics Canada reported that almost two-thirds of indigenous women experience physical and sexual assault by intimate and non-intimate partners. This is almost two times higher than for non-indigenous women. I myself have experienced violence. We also continue to be impacted by intergenerational trauma from harms experienced in colonial institutions, and we are profoundly aware of our safety in public due to the thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across Canada. It is important for providers of entrepreneurship services to take trauma-informed training and provide services in a manner that demonstrates that indigenous women will be safe.
My second recommendation is to provide financial capability training for indigenous women entrepreneurs. In 2020, I conducted research for NACCA on indigenous women entrepreneurs. When we asked indigenous women what knowledge supports they needed, the top subjects were financial, such as financing a business, bookkeeping, and payroll obligations.
Each of us develops our financial capability from childhood, observing how those around us deal with money. Many indigenous people don't have role models to show us how to manage our finances. Access to financial services is limited in indigenous communities, so this is not a part of life that many indigenous people can observe. The financial knowledge gap is great among indigenous entrepreneurs and even greater among indigenous women entrepreneurs. Additional financial capability training will transmit essential knowledge and increase the efficacy of indigenous women entrepreneurs.
Thank you.