Business & Professional Women - Amman Association

The Business and Professional Women - Amman Association, believes in strengthening the skills, education, and business training of women in Jordan, so that underprivileged women have the opportunity and tools they need to be able to start businesses. The BPWA also serves underprivileged youth, ages 18-24, in conducting training, mentoring, and education on entrepreneurship to improve their socio-economic stability.  

BPWA's Core Values:

It stands to all that we hold these beliefs as non changing tenets:

• Newness, Creativity, Innovation and our deeply rooted belief in our heritage, are the dynamic core of our association.
• Collective energies create unlimited potential.
• Gender partnership increases overall productivity and thus the competitiveness of our national economy.
• The differentiating factors to anyone joining our efforts are, passion and commitment to our mission.

The BPWA is a NGO, started in 1976, by businesswomen and pioneering women in Jordan.  Their mission and vision are as follows:

BPWA's mission is to open pathways and create platforms for women in business to move beyond barriers and utilize their unique energies, talents, and capabilities to make a difference.

The Association's long term vision is to be a vital contributor to the prosperity of the Jordanian Business and Professional Society. It serves as a gateway to promote leadership, education, and job-linked training. It is engaged in a wide range of developmental projects that aim to improve the quality of women's participation in the labor market in Jordan. It also aims to develop a formula to create a balance between the professional and personal lives of working women.

BPWA Projects

BPWA implements projects that improve the status of women in Jordanian society. They aim to increase the number of working in the work force, and partner with private and public sector entities to do so.  They increase the professional skills of underprivileged and underutilized women to help them reach their potential, through trainings, work/life balance assistance, and mentoring.  

Committees

The BPWA currently has five different committees which are the Membership, Youth, Business Education  & Capacity, Building, & Events Committees.

Business Mentoring/Entrepreneurial Training

Young Entrepreneurs Business Training

• Creating Sustainable Training Modules to Empower Young Entrepreneurs - "How to Start Your Business" - in partnership with the Young Entrepreneurs Association, a grant has been provided through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to implement "Empowering Young Entrepreneurs" training.  This training will provide skills for young people on how to start their own businesses, who are currently in college. The goal is to empower youth, in particular marginalized youth who may be limited economically, due to educational structures, status, and their gender.  This training will enhance the youth's skills to be able to launch out into the business market while enhancing their skills. This will involved mentoring youth, training students on business skills, and obtaining funding by loan providers. 

Reflections

The BPWA provides a terrific mix of educating women and marginalized youth, and shows them through business and entrepreneurial knowledge, how they can change their circumstances, their socio-economic conditions and status in Jordanian society.  These skills are especially needed by marginalized youth, and women, so that they feel empowered. When women are business owners, they are less susceptible to accept conditions of domestic violence, to be trafficked, and add even more value to their families,  and can then obtain further education and opportunities that they may normally never receive otherwise.  The BPWA is very structured in that it establishes programs for trainings, provides guest speakers, and mentoring opportunities for women and youth, and leverages the resources of women in existing businesses, to be able to assist and mentor those women and youth who need assistance in starting an enterprise, or in obtaining a loan, or in basic business skills and acumen. This is something that every business owner would like to have, a mentor, an organization to go to for assistance for funding, guidance, and knowledge in order to have a successful business, especially to be able to change circumstances of individuals. To be able to assist underprivileged youth and women start enterprises is a great service and honor, and to provide them with the tools to be successful is enriching to their lives and the lives of their families.