The women entrepreneurship strategy is really incredible. It has supported a number of women and gender-diverse people on their trajectories to starting, scaling and growing their own businesses.
For those who are just getting started as entrepreneurs, one of the biggest issues is access to financing, access to capital. If they are uninitiated in financial jargon, it is very intimidating to approach a bank with their business idea and then be met with the notion that their business idea is too risky or that they don't have enough collateral to be able to pursue their business idea without any kinds of extra supports in place to help them be ready to access that kind of financing. That's really discouraging.
A lot of women and gender-diverse folks who are self-employed are doing this as sort of microenterprises. They are solopreneurs. They are working on the thing that drives them and is their passion. They're trying to sell these things. It's not necessarily able to sustain them and their families, but there is growth potential there, so it needs to be nurtured and supported and incubated. That's what the women entrepreneurship strategy is helping to provide, that holistic approach to supporting these people in getting their businesses going and accessing the capital they need.