Perhaps one of the significant achievements for local indigenous women in business at the 14th World Indigenous Business Forum (WIBF) in Port Moresby, was for Papua New Guinea (PNG) to be a part of and be represented at the Indigenous Women in Industry economic summit coming up in New Zealand.
Ms. Rachel Petero, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rise2025 Global- an indigenous company, said through her company they have helped in growing indigenous leaders and all women for 7 years now.
“We have to build pathways that our women can see the pathway to leadership, see the pathway to entrepreneurship and see the pathway to sustainability,” said Ms. Petero.
She said that it is because of this that they have come together to host a first of its kind business get together for all indigenous women in business next year.
“As part of Rise, what we’ve been doing is building partnerships and we’ve been building a new partnership which is coming to Aotearoa next year February and that is called IWI, which means tribe in New Zealand.”
“So, we a growing an Indigenous Women in Industry global tribe. We’re starting in New Zealand on February 04th and Papua New Guinea is going to be part of this economic summit.”
To represent PNG at the IWI summit is Ms. Linda Paru, who was appointed by the New Zealand team as PNG’s new Ambassador for the Indigenous Women in Industry body.
Ms. Paru said the appointment came as a surprise to her and she accepted it graciously.
Ms. Paru was appointed because of her work in the country to help the progress and success of women operated businesses.
“I run a social enterprise, PNG Indigenous Women Entrepreneurs Connect. It’s 10 years old and it has 36, 000 members country wide, and this for me is very big because I see it as a blessing because we worked so hard to help women in business.”
“I am greatly honoured representing these women and I’d like to say thank you so much to Rachel and the team, the World Indigenous Business Forum for making this possible.”