Entrepreneurs in Westchester County will soon have even more options to receive professional advice to grow their businesses.
Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO), a private, nonprofit organization that provides a 16-week workshop to entrepreneurs and small-business owners, will be expanding into Westchester with a location at the iPark building on Nepperhan Avenue in Yonkers.
The New York City-based organization, which has eight locations in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs, previously served southern Westchester County through its Bronx location.
WIBO”™s 16-week workshop, “How to Build a Growing Profitable Business,” is conducted in the spring and fall. The first Yonkers seminar is scheduled for September.
“We are very pleased to expand our services to southern Westchester County,” said Amini Kajunju, executive director of WIBO. “Major social and economic development transformations are occurring in cities like New Rochelle, White Plains, Mount Vernon and Yonkers.”
Kajunju said the workshop is open to everyone, but is targeted toward minority and women entrepreneurs.
“We”™re trying to attract them,” she said. “It”™s for those who have already started business and those who plan to.”
Two men who were business owners and residents of Harlem and who wanted to help members of their community with small-business aspirations, originally founded WIBO in 1966.
Before joining WIBO in 2001, Kajunju was a program manager for a Connecticut-based company that helps build businesses in southern Africa.
As that particular project was ending, she wanted to continue to do similar work, and applied for the opening of assistant executive director at WIBO. She was promoted to executive director in 2002.
Kajunju said she was attracted by the mission of WIBO, to help make small-business ownership a reality for residents of communities who may not have much access to business training.
“Our mission is to enable small-business owners and budding entrepreneurs from underserved communities to obtain financial success by starting, operating and building successful businesses that develop economic power, provide jobs and improve communities,” she said. “The way economies move forward is because of small businesses; they employ people and then the economy grows.”
The organization expanded into Yonkers in part through the efforts of City Council Majority Leader Patricia McDow.
McDow is a WIBO graduate, having used the training to become a licensed nail technician and licensed aesthetician and developing her own line of cosmetics.
“As a graduate of the WIBO program, I know firsthand how important and valuable this program can be for those who are currently in business or those who are aspiring to open their own business,” said McDow.
Kajunju said the workshop is free and there is a fee for the workbook, which is $149 for students who make less than $30,000 annually and $199 for all others.
She said WIBO is largely funded through private donations, and it would have a hard time continuing its operations without that kind of giving.
“We get funding from corporations, foundations and individuals; that”™s where a lot of it comes from,” she said.
This year is the first time WIBO has gotten public funding, as it received a grant from the city of New York to help fund its operations.
Enrollment for the September course in Yonkers is now open; those interested in signing up can call (212) 684-0854 or visit HYPERLINK “http://www.wibo.org” www.wibo.org.
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