UN Women and Sunlight Launch Learning Platform to Advance Women’s Economic Empowerment in Indonesia

[Press Release]
[For immediate release]

Jakarta, Indonesia — Today, UN Women and Unilever’s brand Sunlight launched WeLearn, a new online learning platform that aims to improve equal learning opportunities to empower women who want to start or grow their business through skill development.

Supported by Sunlight, UN Women’s WeLearn online learning platform offers free, customized and skills-based learning paths and access to a community of learners. Co-designed with women entrepreneurs and in partnership with industry experts, WeLearn’s curricula comes in various formats to help women progress and complete lessons and modules at their own pace and at a time suitable for them.

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) plays a critical role in Indonesia as the economic backbone, with its high contribution to business establishment (99 per cent) and to GDP is 60 per cent in 2018 . The total number of MSMEs in 2018 reached 57.83 million with more than 60 per cent managed by women (or equal to 37 million women entrepreneurs).

“Despite progress on women’s economic empowerment, women entrepreneurs continue to experience challenges in accessing skills development and face barriers to securing capital to start and grow their businesses and accessing business networks, in large part due to discriminatory and cultural norms. Increasing access to entrepreneurial opportunities is about ensuring that women learn the skills necessary to adapt to changing world of work and market development and for women to be able to make decision about their own lives. Through WeLearn we will provide learning opportunities that respond to the needs of, and empower women to transform their lives, families, and communities,” said UN Women Indonesia Representative Jamshed Kazi.

“As Sunlight, we are delighted to be collaborating with UN Women on the WeLearn initiative. This is aligned with our purpose to unleash the untapped power of women in society and help 5 million Indonesian women discover their limitless potential and achieve their entrepreneurial dreams by 2022. We believe that empowering women by providing learning opportunities will inspire and support women to start and grow their business,” said Veronica Utami, Director of home care Unilever Indonesia & Dirt is Good SEA-ANZ.

Since its inception in the 1800s, Sunlight's purpose has been to improve the lives and wellbeing of women. Sunlight has been accompanying Indonesian women since the 1980s and understands that many women spend most of their family time in the kitchen and doing chores, and sometimes forget to think about their passions and pursue their dreams. Sunlight believes that housework should not get in the way of any woman achieving her dreams.

Piloting WeLearn in Indonesia, the UN Women - Sunlight partnership sets out to empower at least 5,000 women entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs in greater Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Malang. As an initial step, the WeLearn platform provides learning material on entrepreneurship targeting aspiring women to help them prepare for and start their business. The materials, accessibility and user-friendliness of the platform have been tested by women entrepreneurs. Widya Esthi Riany, who owns a pasta business and participated in the user testing exercise said, “The WeLearn platform is useful and relevant especially for those who just recently started their business because the lessons provide us with guidelines”. In the coming months, WeLearn will expand to offer more learning topics on entrepreneurship and leadership for women interested in learning to grow their businesses.

Unilever and UN Women have been working together since 2015 to empower women and girls worldwide. This new collaboration to support the learning platform strengthens Unilever and UN Women joint efforts to promote women’s rights and equal opportunities in the economy.