Creating Pathways to Opportunity: KIC Advances Inclusive Entrepreneurship for Women in Tamale

For many women, entrepreneurship can provide a pathway to income, greater economic participation and the ability to contribute to the wellbeing of their families and communities. Yet access to relevant skills and entrepreneurship opportunities is not always equally available to everyone.

Recognising the importance of creating opportunities that are accessible and responsive to different needs, the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) has organised a dedicated Women’s Bootcamp for women with disabilities in Tamale, providing participants with practical skills to explore entrepreneurship and income-generating opportunities.

The training forms part of KIC’s work under the Initiative for Youth in Agricultural Transformation (IYAT), a partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, which supports young people in local communities with entrepreneurship and practical skills that can help them build sustainable livelihoods and jobs.

Creating Space for Inclusive Participation

The bootcamp brought together more than 122 participants, including women with hearing impairments, visually impaired, Albinism and physically challenged, creating a learning environment designed specifically to support the participation of women with disabilities.

Participants received hands-on training in the production of Tombrown, soya milk, soya kebab, soya ready- to eat cereal and soya ice cream. The practical focus of the training provides participants with skills that can potentially be developed into small enterprises, while also introducing opportunities for value addition using agricultural commodities.

For KIC, inclusion is not simply about opening the door to existing programmes. It also means being intentional about identifying barriers to participation and creating opportunities that respond to the realities of people who may otherwise be underserved.

This approach reflects KIC’s broader commitment to ensuring that entrepreneurship capacity development reaches people across different circumstances and abilities.

Skills That Can Strengthen Livelihoods

The value of the training extends beyond learning how to produce food products.

For participants, the skills acquired can provide a foundation for exploring entrepreneurship, developing products for local markets and building sources of income. For their households, greater economic participation can contribute to everyday needs and financial resilience. At community level, supporting more women to participate in enterprise can contribute to more diverse and inclusive local economies.

By linking practical skills with entrepreneurship, KIC is helping create pathways through which women can participate more actively in economic life and pursue opportunities on their own terms.

An Inclusive Approach to Economic Empowerment

The Tamale bootcamp is part of KIC’s continuing commitment to inclusive entrepreneurship and economic empowerment.

The initiative demonstrates that inclusion requires more than recognising diversity, it requires action. By intentionally creating a programme for women with disabilities, KIC, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation is working to ensure that disability does not become a barrier to accessing opportunities for skills development and entrepreneurship.

The approach is grounded in a simple principle: economic opportunity should be accessible to everyone.

Every young person deserves the opportunity to develop their skills, pursue their aspirations and build a livelihood. Every woman should have the opportunity to participate meaningfully in economic life. And people with disabilities should be able to access entrepreneurship and skills-development opportunities that recognise their capabilities, aspirations and potential.

Through initiatives such as the Women’s Bootcamp in Tamale, KIC is putting that commitment into practice—creating more inclusive pathways to skills, enterprise and economic opportunity, while ensuring that no group is left out of the conversation about Ghana’s economic future.