ASTANA – The results of a project to train and retrain unemployed women were presented at a recent roundtable in late October organized by the NGO Association of Business Women of Kazakhstan and the Chevron energy company.
Member of the Mazhilis Serik Seidumanov and adviser to the President of Kazakhstan, Chairman of the National Commission for Women, Family and Demographic Policy under the President Gulshara Abdykalikova took an active part in the discussion.
The project, implemented in the cities of Astana and Almaty, as noted by President of the NGO Association of Business Women of Kazakhstan Raushan Sarsembayeva, will be launched in other regions of the republic. Approximately 3,000 women received training in such professions and specialties as accountant, manicurist and pedicurist, hairdresser, pastry maker, seamstress, office manager and governess. Ten percent of them had already started their businesses and 70 percent were employed, according to statistics presented at the roundtable The most in-demand professions among women are accountants and babysitters.
Since 2009, the project has been funded by Chevron, which pays attention to the development of human potential. According to its government relations director Yerkin Zikibayev, the company in the long term will help local communities address specific economic problems. Commenting on the event, Abdykalikova noted the employment efforts of the government programme Employment 2020.
