Paheja Siririka

WINDHOEK - Organisers of the Women Expo, which was recently hosted in the capital, say the expo was intended to bring women from different backgrounds together to showcase their products and render their services.

Frieda and Siphora Nambwandja decided to create a platform for women to come together and display their products. 

“SMEs (small and medium enterprises) that deal with food, clothes, jewellery, cakes, drinks and cutlery came in numbers to promote their products,” said one of the organisers, Frieda Nambwandja.
She told Entertainment Now! that the concept of the expo came about when she saw it happening in other countries.

“I saw that it was done in other countries and I saw we had that gap in Namibia,” she revealed.
The expo was energised by performances by local artists among them Carry K, Cool Kid, DJ AsserDeep, and Priscilla, the Namibian Dessert Queen. 

“We saw it as an important way to include a circle of women empowerment talking on business funding. Hence, the theme for this edition was 'Funding Women in Business' and with this, we had Lelemba Phiri from Enygma Ventures, who came from abroad to inform women about the funding programme,” revealed Nambwandja.

The three-day event took place from November 29 to December 1, 2019, at the TransNamib sports fields in Windhoek. “We will look into hosting the show in other towns in future. For now, we will focus on Windhoek only,” hinted Nambwandja.

Established in 2017, the expo has since been hosted twice a year, including this year. The organisers told Entertainment Now! that the response was great and they received recommendations on improvements for the next event. 

“We have accepted all the advice and positive critics, which will enable us to push more next time,” said Nambwandja.

She encouraged corporates to join and help where they can. “I urge corporate companies to come through next year and sponsor our event because we are looking at the dates of April 3 to 5, 2020, and I also invite companies that deal with women empowerment to come on-board,” Nambwandja told Entertainment Now!