Mason launches it’s GO WISE programme

GO WISE stands for Get Our Women Into Self Employment.  It is a Mason initiative where we are training unemployed women in entrepreneurship.  We are setting them up in their own business (a franchise of Mason) and they will be responsible for managing this business.  The business will use an A4 paper vending machine to vend paper to the clients.  These clients will then be charged only for the paper they use and the client will get a report on the departmental usage of paper to compare departments.  It is our intention to train 100 currently unemployed women and set them up with an income stream and future capital for when they sell this business.

We are in the process of training the first 2 batches of women - and have 45 women on this training programmme.  As soon as the pilot phase has been successfully implemented, the next batch of women will be trained.

We have received funding from the W&R Seta to train these women and have a partnership with Sappi to take the initiative to market.  We anticipate the first candidates to be properly trained and in business in time for Women’s Day.