PR to promote the SCP concept and commercialisation were the themes in the latest round of capacity building training with the MGMA team.
SMART Myanmar is a project funded by the European Union. “SMART Myanmar is the abbreviation of SMEs for environmental Accountability, Responsibility and Transparency. The local partners of SMART are the Myanmar Garment Association (MGMA) and UMFCCI. SMART implements all its activities through and with MGMA. Sequa g GmbH German leads a consortium of 5 partners who jointly implement all activities.
In the larger framework of SMART Myanmar activities regarding awareness creation about SCP in Myanamar. the MGMA staff were introduced to various new methods in raising the profile of their organisation to both their membership and the international community. The focus was on the new website as a key tool for promotion of the SCP concept and communication. A number of topics were discussed with the team including writing press releases, how to make the web site interesting and professional and uses for the web site to promote two-way communication.
In addition the staff were introduced to commercialisation and asked to participate in a facilitated discussion on services and products they could deliver which might generate income for MGMA. A number of ideas were generated from these discussions which may become a platform for the project partners to design a number of commercial activities. These activities will be able to generate income to improve services to members consolidating MGMA’s postion as the key membership organisation for the Garment and Textile sector.
Paul Tinsley, Head of Enterprise at Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, who delivered the training said, “There are often issues for membership organisations in transforming countries around the attraction of new members and retention of existing ones. The garment sector is growing in Myanmar and our role in SMART Myanmar is to ensure that MGMA is at the heart of this growth becoming the driving force behind these exciting developments. We want them to be the single point of contact for networking opportunities, information dissemination especially on SCP and providing support for international buyers.”
“The MGMA staff have proved to be very entrepreneurial and have given us some great ideas to work on, and our focus for the SMART programme is to ensure that, when the project ends, MGMA will be in a strong position to sustain and develop its role within the sector in Myanmar. If we can develop just a few of these great ideas I am sure this will happen.”
Additional support in specific promotional activities, and the commercialisation of these activities, is on going and the intention is to focus on some specific areas to develop the expertise of existing staff whilst generating income to increase resource in the organisation. Topics such as commercial events, sponsorships and the creation of a databank of research and information available for the international community are the three key topics being targeted.
