Nishnawbe Aski Development Funds, Microloans Business Development
Training Sessions Conference
by Scott A. Sumner
A Mini Conference was held recently by the Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund- Microloans Business Development Training Sessions.
“Today we are having this microloan small loans conference that we provide to First Nations Women funded by the Ontario Womens Director. We are offering training sessions based on a workshop we give, Business 101, but it is expanded with first hand experiences from local
businesses.We have over 20 women here today and we hope a good portion of them will start businesses. These were business development sessions. Many of the ladies came in from isolated remote communities.” said Mahogany McGuire, Small Business Instructor NADF
One of the motivationalspeakers was Tammy Beauvais who comes from the Mohawk Nation near Montreal.
“In the fall we did a 17 hours drive to Thunder Bay and had a very successful show at Victoriaville where I met Mahogany from NADF. Today I talked about what I have been through and other Indigenous women have been through. We have to overcome some of our experiences growing up before we can even do anything else. It is a lot of work. Healing is important. Next you have to have a good support system and I utilized an organization back home similar to NADF getting more skills. Before this even, there is your dream, what you want to be when you grow up,”
smiles Tammy. “ I have now had 18 years as an entrepreneur. We create and manufacture with on line sales and outlets that sell our products. You need to be everywhere and at one time did 50 events a year in Canada and the US. We were recently comissioned to do a gift from Sophie Gregoire Trudeau for Michelle Obama.”
