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Starting a business requires a good marketing and advertising program. The NGO Women-Owned Media & Education Network (Women) provides marketing and advertising training to women entrepreneurs, including Venezuelan immigrants, enabling them to scale and grow their ideas and businesses.

Lucia Cabrera-Jones, co-founder and CEO of Women, said that since 2020, it has started holding branding and digital marketing workshops for local women to show them how to attract potential clients. I was.

As a result of the increasing number of Spanish-speaking women starting businesses in Trinidad and Tobago, the NGO decided to go further and hold workshops for immigrant communities.

Cabrera-Jones told Business Day that 14 Venezuelan women attended the first branding and digital marketing pilot workshop a month ago.

The workshop was a great success. Originally he was supposed to open with five people, but 14 signed up, Cabrera-Jones said.

The workshop lasted four weeks and was conducted on the Zoom platform by Cabrera-Jones and Women member Jaime Hoyte.

“We had to make arrangements to do a workshop. I can understand women who want to move forward in an organized way,” she said.

The women plan to expand their next workshop to demonstrate how to create tools for women to do more research, analyze competition and find financial assistance.

The workshop is scheduled for January and is expected to last four months.

Several Venezuelan women said they had a better approach to running their businesses after the workshop.

Elisabeth Escalona, ​​who lives in San Fernando, said the workshop has helped her use digital platforms to attract clients in creating logos and using photos.

She has a dessert and candy business and is about to open a hamburger and hot dog cart as well.

“I’ve learned to manage my network, and the quality of the photos I’ve learned to take has helped me see more of my desserts.”

Hormary Zacarias of Sangre Grande started selling cookies at home and expanded into meal prep.

She was able to separate the two cooking styles thanks to better marketing.

“I’ve learned to separate one thing from the other. I used to put everything together and confuse my clients. Now I get calls and ideas about everything,” she says. said.

Arima’s Julia Elena Franco says the workshop helped create a social network that allowed her to book orders with more clients. Franco She runs Franco’s Cafe. This is her delivery service for Latin and local food. Most of her clients are from the Latinx community, but her branding and digital marketing have helped her attract her local clientele.

Baker Anne Flores sells a range of Venezuelan breads through social media. She received support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to start her business.

“Thanks to the support of UNHCR, I was able to purchase my own equipment. You can also promote courses for women to learn, make their own bread and sell it as a source of income,” she said.

Cabrera-Jones is happy that the women have found success among Latino women.

“The results speak for themselves. Now these women are able to visually display their business in an organized way and market it like a big business.”