Ballarat resident Lilly Wright has found purpose through her business Flying Chillies, sharing the flavours of Malaysia and Indonesia while providing employment to other migrant women.

Ms Wright creates Malaysian condiments like chilli oils and sambal using her mother's recipes and sells her products at markets and in stores.

"It is very hard to travel at the moment to Malaysia. I want to bring that back to Ballarat, to bring that authenticity," she said.

Mentoring from new Victorian social enterprise Migrant Women in Business has helped Ms Wright solidify and grow the business since it launched last July.

Migrant Women in Business co-founder Luz Restrepo has acted as Mr Wright's mentor, providing guidance on product costing and marketing, connecting to others and focusing on growing the business.

The Victorian Government provided a grant to Migrant Women in Business as part of a funding package designed to help women back into the workforce despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has disproportionately affected women, with women more likely to lose work, suffer severe financial impacts and take on a greater share of unpaid caring responsibility.

Migrant Women in Business is working with entrepreneurs like Ms Wright to develop commercial opportunities.

Online marketplace Made By Many Hands provides a platform for women to sell their products and the soon to launch marketplace Made By Many Minds connects migrant women with small business experts.

Ms Restrepo said migrant women who experienced disadvantage in their home country faced added difficulties after they moved to Australia.

She said there was a big need for hands-on support and commercial opportunities for migrant women in microbusinesses, with low literacy levels and language barriers making online information challenging.

Ms Restrepo said support for women in regional towns could generate employment and further migration beyond the big cities.

"When we support our women in having a flexible job in business, we can have a happy mum who is supporting their husband and children to move forward in small towns," she said.

"I strongly believe migration and regional development are connected."

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Ms Wright has a degree in photography and has worked as a banker in the past, before pursuing her love for cooking and baking through small business Lilly Loves Cakes in 2018.

The move to launch Flying Chillies came from Ms Wright's desire to focus on and share the flavours from her cultural backgrounds Malaysia and Indonesia.

"I want to show people the food in Malaysia is not only laksa or satay, we have so many deeper flavours as well. I want to share the way we eat and gather together," Ms Wright said.

Ms Wright has worked with other Ballarat businesses, including Tim Bone who has used Flying Chillies products in his toasties.

She was busy selling corporate hampers in the lead-up to Christmas and manning her stall at markets, but this year the big focus is on wholesale to get her products into regional stores.

Ms Wright said the purpose of the business was not only to create profit for herself, but to help give back to the community by employing other migrant women.

She is starting to need the extra hands on deck to keep up with demand for products while juggling other aspects of the business and her work at at social enterprise cafe for migrant women A Pot of Courage.

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"It fulfills my purpose to give back and contribute to the community. That is why Flying Chillies was really meaningful for me," she said.

"It doesn't matter how little or how big I get it, but the more orders we have, the more wholesale I do, the more work I can give to other people as well."

Ms Restrepo said she wanted to address the gap, with one in three businesses owned by a woman, one in three businesses owned by migrants, but just one in 10 businesses owned by a migrant woman.

"How do we create opportunities for migrant women to grow and thrive and be successful?," she said.

"When you support a migrant women you know she is thinking about her community and the migrant people around her.

"When you support a migrant women in business you are supporting an emerging leader."

Ms Restrepo co-founded Migrant Women in Business during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Victoria.

Ms Restrepo moved to Australia from Colombia as a political asylum seeker 12-years-ago and lives in Maldon, near Castlemaine.

"I spoke no English. Through free English classes I quickly started to get the language," she said.

Ms Restrepo's first venture was starting social enterprise SisterWorks which aims to improve social inclusion for migrant women in Australia.

"In my journey supporting thousands of migrant women to feel like they belong to this country, I found women become independent when they start to develop their own microbusiness," she said.

This is how Migrant Women in Business was formed.

Ms Restrepo is focusing on Ballarat as an area of support and is working with other women like Mary Top and Mary Deng who make aprons out of recycled denim jeans.

The pair and their business featured on ABC television program Movin' To The Country as part of a feature on Migrant Women in Business and they shared their dream to open a retail shop.

Ms Restrepo encourages other migrant women in business looking for connections and support to get in touch: mwib.com.au/.

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