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Agency assists budding entrepreneurs start businesses
A First for Private Daycare
Photo: Booz Allen Hamilton
Children at the BAMBI daycare center
playing in the garden during a USAID
staff visit.
“Entrepreneurship
training made me
realize that I could put
the skills and
knowledge I acquired
to a better use,” said
Kaltrina Mujaj, owner
of BAMBI.
As women join the workforce in Kosovo, there is an increasing
need for quality daycare. BAMBI, which opened in April 2010,
is the first privately-owned daycare center in Kosovo’s
Gllogovc/Gllogovac municipality, which has a population of
74,000.
The daycare center, which is currently hosting 28 children ranging
in age from six months to six years, is run by Kaltrina Mujaj.
This 22-year-old woman had participated in a USAID-supported
entrepreneurship training program for four months in 2009. She
was one of the program’s 50 participants, chosen after applying
in an open competition organized by a local USAID-supported
NGO.
When she entered the training, Mujaj hoped to gain new
knowledge and skills, both professional and academic. At its
close, she became the recipient of a bank loan for having developed
the best business plan. As her thriving daycare center
shows, Kaltrina is now using those skills and realizing her aspirations.
“USAID entrepreneurship training program made me realize
that I could put the skills and knowledge I acquired to a better
use”, says Kaltrina.
Currently, the BAMBI day care center employs four women, but
as an ever growing number of parents become interested in the
services, more jobs will open for females in this community.
Kaltrina was not the only beneficiary of the USAID-sponsored
training. Five more businesses throughout Kosovo opened as a
result, creating 20 additional jobs for youth and women. In Kosovo
and throughout Eastern Europe, USAID continues to assist
entrepreneurially motivated youth to acquire the knowledge
and skills required to start-up or re-organize small businesses,
or find meaningful employment in an ongoing business enterprise.
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