The Swift Project

The Swift Project celebrates

The latest cohort of women entrepreneurs to take part in The Swift Project celebrated their successful completion of the programme with Home Secretary, Amber Rudd and Becky Shaw, CEO of ESCC, on Friday 21 July in Hastings.

The Swift Project, which is funded through the NatWest Skills & Opportunities fund, run by local charity, Sound Architect and supported by ESCC, helps women entrepreneurs to expand or set up new businesses giving them the confidence and ongoing support they need to make their businesses sustainable.

Since 2014, the programme has helped over 100 women with digital and business skills training, peer-to-peer group work, target-setting and mentoring. The latest project, which was centred in Hastings, helped 25 businesswomen who came from as far as Fairlight in the East of the county to Brighton in the West.

Alongside the facilitators on the programme, a number of businesses and organisations volunteered to share their expertise including Aviatrix Solutions, Fugu PR, Reid Briggs Insurance, NatWest, Entrepreneurial Spark, and Business East Sussex.

The celebration event was the culmination of the six month programme and kicked off with a fun and interactive workshop run by The Maydays, an improvisation-based training company, who worked with the participants on their presentation skills. The participants were then given the opportunity to pitch their businesses to the invited guests and to hear from Amber Rudd and Becky Shaw.

Said Ruth Maddison, Project Director, “We have been delighted with the engagement of the women on this programme who have not only made the most of every opportunity on offer but have also supported one another on every level, and that is what Swift is all about – women supporting other women.”

Amber Rudd, MP for Hastings and Rye commented: “Thank you to Ruth and her team for inviting me to speak at the graduation of inspiring women entrepreneurs from the Swift Project. It is great to see all of the opportunities that the latest cohort of businesswomen have available to them in order to thrive and succeed in the business community. I look forward to hearing about the success stories over the coming months, and I would like to pay tribute to Ruth and the Swift Project for enabling this to happen.”

For more information, click The Swift Project

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