USAID supports counselling skills training for small business counsellors in North

Wednesday, 20 April 2016 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

More than 100 aspiring business counsellors from the Northern Province participated in a two-day workshop on ‘Attitude Blast (R) and Counselling Skills Training (R) for Nucleus Small Business Counsellors’. The program held from 6-7 April in Jaffna, was organised by the OPTIMIZE Micro Enterprise Development and Agricultural Productivity project implemented by Nucleus Foundation and supported by the US Government’s development arm – the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Staff from the Department of Industries of the Northern Provincial Council, the Industrial Development Board, other private service providers and NGOs attended sessions on changing attitudes from negative to positive, working smart and working hard, facing professional challenges, setting values to achieve desired results, coaching and mentoring skills, business and group counselling as well as presentation and public speaking skills.

The Chief Guest of the event, Director of the Department of Industries Usha Subalingam, speaking at the inauguration said: “This is a valuable opportunity for our staff to gain the skills necessary to improve our service delivery, we should make use of this opportunity to strengthen ourselves to better serve the communities we work with.”

“Business counsellors play a vital role in providing counselling support to small enterprises. USAID is happy to build their capacity, and help them improve services to small-scale entrepreneurs. Small enterprises form the backbone of the country’s economy, and also play a key role in the development process,” said USAID Sri Lanka and Maldives Acting Mission Director Reed Aeschliman.

The Nucleus Foundation (NF) is a non-profit association working in development cooperation providing a range of services to partner agencies throughout the region including projects, training and research. The Foundation was established under a Memorandum of Understanding with the former Ministry of Nation Building and Estate Infrastructure Development.

USAID is the development arm of the US Government. American people, through USAID, have provided development and humanitarian assistance in developing countries worldwide for more than 50 years. Since 1956, the US Government has invested over $ 2 billion to benefit all Sri Lankans.