Market Vendor Associations Reps equipped with leadership and good governance skills

Group Photo of the Executive members of AMVA with the Facilitators of the workshop (Photo: UN Women/Sharon Tohaimae)

Friday 17 August 2018 (Solomon Islands): A total of 15 representatives from Auki Market Vendors Association (AMVA) completed a four day leadership and good governance training in Auki on Thursday 16 August.

“The exercise that we did on negotiation is a new thing to me. I didn’t know how to raise issues on behalf of other vendors. But now, I feel confident that I can do it” said Joana Betty, one of the executive members of AMVA and a participant in the training. Ms Betty added that “We are business people and we deal with people and building our skills in this area is very important.”

The UN Women Markets for Change (M4C) Project training was facilitated by M4C Project partner Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) and aims to equip market vendors with the relevant knowledge and skills on governance and leadership so that MVA leaders can lead and represent the interest of market vendors with their respective local government and market management.

The market vendor leaders had the opportunity to gain skills and knowledge of a number of topics such as understanding gender, leadership, conflict management and negotiation, customer service, association governance and Constitution, and how they can successfully organize and run their association.

“This is my first time to attend such a training since I joined the Executive Committee. I’ve learned a lot from the training. I learned about our roles and responsibilities as executive members, leadership and negotiation. From the leadership session, I learned what it takes to be a good leader – be trustworthy, be patient.” said Unity Lulu, a participant at the training.

Another participant, Ms Julie Sivo commented, “The training builds my confidence to work well and represent our vendor’s issues. Now I know what my role and responsibility is and how I should communicate with market vendors from my sector in the market.”

Ms Sivo further stated, “Now it’s up to us to put into practice what we have learned from the training - we have to action what we learned.”

UN Women’s M4C project is a six-year, multi-country initiative that aims to ensure marketplaces in rural and urban areas of Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu are safe, inclusive and non-discriminatory, promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. A UN Women project, M4C is principally funded by the Australian Government, and since 2018 the project partnership has expanded to include funding support from the Government of Canada. UNDP is a project partner.