DirectConnect is training Belarusians for Business Start-ups!
DirectConnect continues to make inroads into the lives of the Belarusian people in a most unique way! Bill Compton and Matt Parsley traveled to the former Soviet Republic of Belarus to host and provide instruction for the “Stepladder to Business Success” seminar in Borisov, Belarus. The seminar was designed to give young women interested in starting their own businesses the technical skills in business start-up and marketing to develop and launch their business ideas. Matt Parsley, business owner and chairman of the board for DirectConnect Humanitarian Aid, developed presentations for business plan development, securing funding for business start-up, and personnel management. Bill Compton, retired marketing and economics teacher and board member for DirectConnect, focused on concepts and techniques related to market identification and research, target marketing, product/service branding, and concepts related to personal selling and digital marketing.
Matt Parsley provides instruction while Oleg interprets. Oleg has assisted our teams in Belarus for 25 years with his interpretation skills.
Bill answers questions and makes the point clear.
Alena Autushka, director of Provincia, an organization dedicated to empowering Belarusian women, helped organize and coordinate this business seminar. The training, fully funded by DirectConnect, was attended by twenty-four women. They consisted of twelve mentors who are already running businesses and their twelve mentees who have aspirations of starting and running successful businesses in Belarus. Due to the seminar’s success and the enthusiastic response from the participants, a follow-up program is in the works to bring six or eight of the women to the United States to meet and be trained and mentored by successful business women who are members of the Eugene/Springfield Chambers of Commerce in Oregon. To quote our unofficial tagline with a little change at the end, “We are helping the helpers, help the…hopeful!”
Contributed by: Bill Compton
These ladies are obviously enjoying this learning opportunity.
Group photo at the end of the seminar.