A number of women from Fermanagh are celebrating the completion of a programme aimed at developing their entrepreneurial skills.

The programme was developed with the aim of enabling women in rural areas to start their own business, and has proved a success for women from the Fermanagh area.

Known as the WRAISE (Women in Rural Areas Into Self-Employment) Programme, it is funded by Equal, an initiative of the European Social Fund (ESF), Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) and Enterprise NI and is managed and delivered by Aspire Micro Finance, in association with Enterprise Northern Ireland.

A total of 103 women from across Northern Ireland took part.

Programme Manager, Pauline Kirk said: "We are delighted with the outcome of this programme. According to figures in the 2007 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Northern Ireland has the widest gap between male and female early stage entrepreneurial activity, with just 2.1% of females compared to 7.7% of males."

The course included the delivery of pre-enterprise training, concentrating on ideas' generation and personal development of the participants.

This was in the form of 10 training workshops covering themes such as: Ideas generation, What is an entrepreneur? Marketing, ICT in Business, How to set up a business, Assertiveness training, and others.

Following the training, the groups were encouraged to form their own support group in order to continue with the ongoing development of the business ideas.

The course was specifically tailored for rural women who have particular needs when it comes to self-employment.

Those on the course had business ideas, ranging from media production and jewellery design to a running a catering company and a pub.

Completion of this programme means that all of this untapped talent can now move forward with their plans and develop them further.

Danielle Gillespie, WRAISE Programme Co-ordinator in the Fermanagh area, said:

"It's very encouraging to see so many women taking up the challenge of starting their own business.

The WRAISE Programme provides the support for women who have great businesses ideas, but are not sure how to take them forward by becoming self-employed."

Pauline Kirk added: "We are very grateful and sincerely appreciate the continued support and assistance we received for this programme from the funders, our managing authority, Proteus and the Business Women's Networks. Without them, we could not offer women this vital step up and have made WRAISE possible.."