Cluster creation: Aboriginal women offered courses to learn about starting businesses

It’s business as unusual in Aboriginal communities.

Taking an idea that’s proven to work in Thunder Bay, the Paro Centre for Women’s Enterprise plans to introduce clustering to the Far North, to help First Nation’s women catch the entrepreneurial spirit.

The May Street organization is planning a series of workshops next month to show Aboriginal women how they can come together to share resources, maximize strengths and provide support and mentorship for one another as their businesses begin to grow.

It’s an idea whose time has come, said Rosalind Lockyer, who launched the online workshops Tuesday, who said the idea is not a foreign one in Canada’s Far North.

“Clustering is a natural activity within the Aboriginal communities, so we want to capitalize on that and help women recognize they are a business cluster when they’re working together in their communities … and how they can capitalize on the fact there are more than one businesses working together and use that to bring the kind of resources they need to grow,” Lockyer said.

She noted the idea of clusters was derived in part from what women in the communities have said they need to start their own businesses.

“We’ve decided that we need to do it where the women are now and take it from there,” she said. “We’re going to look at some successful clusters so they can see it can be done, so that they can see other Aboriginal women who have built clusters, and brought resources together and how did they do that.

“It’s so they can seem themselves within that picture. There’s a lot of work to be done. Women tell us that how money operates within the remote areas is different than how it does in other communities.”

Darlene Angeconeb is the project co-ordinator with the Equay-Wuk Women’s Group in Sioux Lookout and said clustering has a definite place in northern communities.

“The knowledge will give women (the ability) to do the first step in starting a small business within their communities, so that women can provide for themselves and help for themselves,” she said.

Craft clusters that have already begun are perfect example.

Angeconeb started a bead group several years ago, which has grown to include a dozen women today, producing museum-quality work.

They did it on their own, but she said help would have been welcome along the way.

“We haven’t really been doing too much in the way of small business. We do have a home-based business manual on our website as a resource for women to download. But we haven’t been able to get too much funding for that,” Angeconeb said.

Proving it could work in Thunder Bay is evidence enough for Sandi Boucher, who founded the year-old Centre for Change based on many of the same clustering philosophies.

“I believe it is definitely transferrable to the First Nations communities. They’re used to working together, they have a variety of skills, so we’re just playing on skills they already have and showing them a tangible example of success,” she said.

The training sessions, offered through Contact North’s web conferencing technology, take place Thursdays in May between noon and 1 p.m.

• May 3 – What is a Cluster (Jessica Hill, Women’s Economic Council)
• May 10 – How a cluster works (Sandi Boucher, Centre for Change)
• May 17 – My First Step – Pathway to Success (Linda McGuire, Cassie Riddle, Darlene Angeconeb)
• May 24 – My “Shooniah (My Money): (Kim Bird, Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund
• May 31 – Social Networking, Swinging the Web (Alice Sabourin)

For more information, visit www.paro.ca.