A rhythmic hum of sowing machines permeates the small room, as Ohn San attempts to finish her most recent work. Ohn San, who lives in Pin Int Village in Myanmar, began her hand made goods business in 2015, focusing on gift making, and then branching out from there. When she heard that Cufa was running a program focused on business management, she quickly signed up, eager to grow her skills.

The program with support from UNDP, gave her the necessary understanding needed to grow her business. Ohn like many entrepreneurs understand the basics of ensuring your costs do not outweigh your profits, but don’t factor in how important things such as bookkeeping are to a business. Cufa’s training, conducted virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on Ohn’s outlook on her business. Ohn has been able to walk away from the lessons with a greater comprehension of the skills needed to grow her business.

Shwe, like Ohn, is an entrepreneur, but is new to being her own boss. Hearing the Cufa was offering a series of workshops to helping inspiring entrepreneurs, she joined up. Joining a separate start up focused pathway, which gave her more pertinent knowledge. Cufa was able to provide her a daily allowance to work around her daily work needs and ran virtual classes to ensure Covid-19 safety. After participating in the lessons, her belief in her future possibilities grew. “I came up with ideas by self-confident on how to do a business at the end of the training, so I will apply the lessons learned in the training in my fishery business” she states cheerfully. She hopes to go forward and share her skills with her community and attend future training sessions.