Diversity and inclusion: Guinness Nigeria Trains 9 Women Bartender

As part of its ongoing Women Empowerment Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiative, Guinness Nigeria has trained 9 women bartender through the Diageo Bar Academy training programme.

The Diageo Bar Academy (DBA) is a training programme where Guinness Nigeria helps Nigerian bar tenders (men and women) to learn world class bartending techniques that they need to build successful careers anywhere they go.

The programme is designed to get more women in bartending positions, to increase the number of women working in the industry through a women-only bartending training.

The International Premium Spirits, Reserve & Modern Trade (IRM) Director, Guiness Nigeria, Viola Graham-Douglas, said this at the Diageo Bar Academy (DBA) graduation ceremony held in Lagos recently.

Graham-Douglas noted that the aim of the programme was to make sure that no part of the workforce in the sector left women behind.

She added that every single year, the academy has had all-men trainees, but in line with Guinness Nigeria’s Diversion and Inclusion Initiative, we have women this time.

According to her, what we did was design a programme that was specially for women, which we call Diageo Bar Academy Diversion and Inclusion Programme.It is aimed at providing more females with viable career opportunities in bartending and the hospitality sector in general.

In her word, “So, in this programme,what we did is we went out to find talented female bartenders who we trained them for free to build their skills in hotels, restaurants, clubs, bars and any other part of the hospitality business and the main things that they looked out for in the trainees include attitude, enthusiasm, compassion and commitment.”

“We are here today, to celebrate one of our efforts in championing diversity and inclusion in our industry with the very first set of graduates from our all-female diversity and inclusion programme at the Diageo Bar”, she said.

The IRM noted that these virtues would help them to excel in the industry after they are done with the training. The Diageo team members were astonished by the strong desire that each of the cohorts showed especially as all nine females completed and excelled in their courses.

“Today we are here to honour the 9 ladies who have completed an intensive programme to become certified bartenders.They can compete and operate within the hospitality business anywhere in the world.

“I’m happy that we have nine successful women who are going to go and set the hospitality world on fire,’’ Graham-Douglas added.

Speaking at the event is the Marketing and Innovations Director, Guiness Nigeria, Mark Mugisha, reiterated the commitment of Guinness Nigeria to diversity and inclusiveness.

Mugisha stated that the DBA programme that the ladies have undertaken is just an estimate to what it is that Guinness will continue to do in terms of driving its diversity agenda.

He added that as for me, what is most important is the commitment and this is a programme that is not just going to simply collapse after our passing cohorts.

“I am pretty sure that, this is the first all-female bartender training in Nigeria. So it’s a big deal for us and we are definitely committed to it. I’m looking forward to some of the experience that our graduates have attained.”