It was a landmark moment in the leadership role which local fashion icon and business mentor Sonia Noel plays in the lives of emerging entrepreneurially-bent women over several years. The curtain had finally fallen on this year’s Women in Business event, one of Ms. Noel’s brain children, designed to provide opportunities for emerging women-led businesses to parade their creations on what, for most of them, are bigger than the accustomed stage; to expand their horizons with regard to the creation and incremental growth of self-sustaining entrepreneurial pursuits. There is, unquestionably, evidence that the relationships are working.
After the curtain had fallen on the final day of the event, the area of the Pegasus, in Kingston, Georgetown, where the event had been staged public, became a bustle of packing and leaving. There appeared to be a genuine sense of warmth in the rituals associated with the farewells, the ritual seemingly a celebration of the fact that the Women in Business event had survived the ravages of more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Stabroek Business had chosen an inopportune moment to talk with Sonia about the success or otherwise of the event. She had become transfixed by the bustle of the women diligently packing their products and carting them off to assorted vehicles outside the entrance to the Pegasus. She appeared to be reflectively casting a careful eye over the whole ‘winding down’ process, as though she were witnessing the conclusion of some cherished assignment.
More than that was happening. On their way out the women were stopping to say their goodbyes to the woman who had put together the event and who, during its staging had hovered over proceedings with a pensive expression, as if she knew only too well how important this was to a group of creative women, many of whom might have thought that their dreams of taking their ambitions further might well have been hijacked by the pandemic. There could be no mistaking the genuine sense of warmth and gratitude that reposed in hugs and “thank yous” that manifested themselves in those farewells.
Only the less than discerning would missed the warmth of the farewells. Unquestionably, they were coming from hearts filled with genuine gratitude for a chance to ‘see the sun’ again and after a while Sonia was reduced, unashamedly, to tears. The vigour of the hugs and the warmth of the expressions of gratitude for ‘the opportunity’ which her energies had realised had clearly overwhelmed her. Afterwards, she told the Stabroek Business that it was as if a door that had been shut tight had suddenly re-opened and that the sunlight-starved interior of a room had “come alive” again.
Sonia however, later admitted that she did not expect that everyone would understand the sense of accomplishment that she felt in affording the participants, their talents and their emerging enterprises to survive the ravages of the pandemic. “Deeply satisfied” is how she said she felt.
When the Stabroek Business had earlier moved amongst the display stalls engaging the participants, we had learnt, perhaps above all else, that whilst most of them admitted to having their fingers crossed, they were seeing this year’s Women’s Expo as a gingerly release from the prison of the pandemic. For them, Women in Business 2022 was an opportunity to ‘exhale,’ an opportunity for which they had been waiting for far too long.
They had come to the Pegasus seemingly expecting no more than an opportunity to reconnect with the rest of the world, to parade their offerings on a stage on which a curtain had fallen and remained in place for two years.
It is not, however, as though the interregnum had realised no growth. It seemed, Sonia had told this newspaper during an extended interview, that the COVID-19 lockdown had released an avalanche of introspection and that the participants in this year’s Women In Business event had come to the table with a more enlightened perspective on where they were, both as creative spirits and as emerging entrepreneurs, and where they wanted to be. Adversity has a remarkable way of focusing minds.
It seems that not least among their virtues is the manner in which each of the participants in Women in Business 2022 appeared to have become chastened by the challenge of COVID-19 and how the pandemic and its manifestations have reinforced their entrepreneurial ambitions whilst teaching them lessons in discipline and resilience. Viewing the various display stalls it seemed, as well, that the physical ‘lockdown’ that the pandemic had imposed had taught valuable lessons in introspection and in the generation of the new creative ideas that were reflected in their work.
Concerns linked to the limitations which the women still face were apparent in their outlook. In an overwhelming number of instances it is the lack of resources with which to take their pursuits to the next level that has always been the main challenge to these women. Added to that, these days, are the challenges associated with recovering, in some instances, rebuilding from the ground up.
There are things that need to be done which, for all its virtues, Women in Business cannot accomplish alone. Here, there is that unmistakably implied fretfulness over the fact that up until now, small businesses in the country’s creative sectors are yet to secure anywhere near the structured official attention that they deserve. It is, a priori, a matter of providing the material means with which to strengthen the structures of these potentially lucrative but largely struggling businesses. The view of the women running these enterprises, is that, in the majority of instances, in order to make a living, not only are there far too few official avenues through which material support is available, but beyond that, the procedures associated with such subsidies as are forthcoming from government can sometimes be convoluted and cumbersome and hardly small business-friendly. In the fullness of time it will come to the awareness of the powers-that-be that oil resources or no, real development will be hamstrung in important ways if we do not hasten the opening of doors for creative people whose talents are waiting to do more for our country.
After a while, the torrent of tears that she had shed as the curtain came down on Women in Business 2022 appeared to metamorphose into a more introspective mood. Sonia volunteered to the Stabroek Business that she had arranged a ‘retreat,’ a kind of rest, relaxation and reflection event on the ‘west side’ to which all the participants had been invited. There, she appeared to envisage an interlude of introspection, a period during which to help strengthen the collective focus which she felt had been created by the Women in Business event and which she feels could ultimately mean the difference between where the women want to go and where they could eventually be left, stranded, if their minds were not in the right place and if there is no place fashioned for them in the consciousness of these who govern.
