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Pro Mujer Celebrates “The Week of Lights”

21 septiembre, 2018

Blog

Pro Mujer The Week of Lights event.

Women in Tucuman attending a workshop during The Week of Lights event.

This week, women throughout the province of Tucuman in Argentina participated in Pro Mujer’s annual “La Semana de las Luces” (The Week of Lights) event, where they honed digital skills and learned from specialists in health and wellness, financial education, and entrepreneurship.

The festivities and trainings are aimed to benefit underserved women in the area, including beneficiaries of Pro Mujer’s financial and health services; women interested in growing both at a personal and entrepreneurial level. The Week of Lights celebration is a yearly tradition for Pro Mujer that boasts 95 workshops that have been taught to approximately 1500 women from the northern part of Argentina, where Pro Mujer has been operating for the past ten years.

Denise Ferreyra, Director of Pro Mujer in Argentina comments, “Our aim is for women in this community to gain exposure to new tools and programs that can strengthen their ability to develop and diversify their businesses.” The digital gender gap remains a major challenge for women’s economic participation and broader empowerment in Argentina and the broader Latin America region, where women are 25% less likely than their male counterparts to use digital services. This is a key area of interest for Pro Mujer as the organization continues to expand its services to better equip women for the economy of the future, whether owning businesses or entering the workforce.

Trainings at this year’s event included a workshop designed to teach women how to use Pro Mujer’s mobile app, LearnMatch, launched this year in partnership with Vision Education. The app uses gamification to teach users English vocabulary and promote familiarity with smartphones.  Other workshops included:

  • Social media basics
  • Technology today. Are we connected?
  • Ways to help prevent breast cancer
  • Technological tools for entrepreneurs: PIM virtual wallet
  • Mercado Pago/ Mercado Libre (e-commerce)
  • Home banking: the bank at your home
  • Microsoft Training

Much remains to be done. The challenge, according to Ferreyra, is to motivate women to take advantage of the technological resources that are available to them so they can incorporate some of the tools into their businesses and everyday lives.