The BPW Business Incubator Project is an initiative of Belmont Business Enterprise Centre in Western Australia (Belmont BEC) and Textile, Clothing and Footwear Resource Centre of Western Australia Inc. (TCF Global) and is supported by The International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW International).

It will provide online training and mentoring to develop the business skills and business growth potential of women in new or existing home based, small businesses.

Workshops will be on offer in areas such as Business Planning, Risk Management, Import/Export and eCommerce. Participants will also have the opportunity to learn about global sourcing from women vendors.

The project will be officially launched by BPW international president Freda Miriklis in New York on 2 March at a parallel event during the fifty-sixth session of the United Nations – Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Carol Hanlon, CEO of Belmont BEC, TCF Global and member BPW International Asia Pacific Committee will present a forum about the project titled ‘Empowering Creative Rural Women Through Enterprise Development and Global Fashion Opportunities’ at the event.

In Australia, the project will launch as part of International Women’s Day Celebrations to be held at the City of Belmont Civic Centre on 8 March 2012. Hanlon said of the project, “I developed the BPW Business Incubator Project so that women would be able to better develop their business skills and as we are a leading ‘virtual’ small business incubator, we are now calling on sponsors to partner in this project to provide scholarships for women around the globe to gain training & mentoring, in particular to take advantage of the opportunities of the Global Platform for action on Sourcing from Women Vendors.

The CSW is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and the advancement of women worldwide.