Thunderbird targets women in mining communities

An online programme that uses interviews, quizzes and television dramas has been created by Thunderbird School of Global Management in the US, to teach business skills to women in Latin America.

Thunderbird’s latest programme targets women in mining communities in Chile and Peru who own small or medium-sized businesses and need support to grow and increase their income. It will be run in partnership with Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold. an international mining company and Bluedrop Performance Learning. Thunderbird hopes the programme will reach 3,400 women over a five-year period.

The course will build on the success of a programme Thunderbird launched last year which uses telenovelas or television drama as a way of delivering business education to female micro-entrepreneurs in Peru.

Core management topics covered in the programme, DreamBuilder: the Women’s Business Creator, include business planning, accounting, financial reporting, branding, pricing, customer service, human resources and goal setting. Participants can complete the 12 classes of the programme at their own pace before creating their own online business plan.

The mining communities of Tierra Amarilla, Copiapό, Caldera and Calama in Chile and Arequipa in Peru have high levels of unemployment, poverty and households headed by women. Freeport-McMoRan has invested in computers and internet access in these communities and Thunderbird hopes that the programme will have a positive impact on each community.

The programme is part of the school’s Thunderbird for Good initiative which focuses on educating female entrepreneurs in developing countries and has trained more than 75,000 women in 25 countries since it was created in 2005.

www.thunderbird.edu