Mine Vaganti NGO was the applicant of a project proposal for the specific Call “Entrepreneurial capacity building for Young migrants” in the frame of the GROWTH programme of the European Union.
Mine Vaganti MGO was the applicant of the project in cooperation with a Consortium composed of 6 organizations from 5 European countries (Italy, Spain, Germany, Croatia, United Kingdom).
“Entrepreneurship Co-DeWise” aims at supporting the socioeconomic integration ofdisadvantaged young migrant adults motivated to start-up and grow their entrepreneurial ideas by means of an entrepreneurial empowerment process grounded on Co-Design based training. Project entrepreneurial empowerment concept encompasses the understanding of the broader social and legal environment, local habits, adopted forms of communication, and non-written rules characterizing local societies as transversal enabling factors of entrepreneurship. People newly arrived from third-countries face complex challenges among which their “insufficient skills and experience (especially language barriers, low levels of education, or a lack of local work experience; difficulties navigating host-country labour markets…); and formal and informal obstacles to employment” (Policies to get immigrants into middle-skilled work in Europe, Migration Policy Institute,2014).
The EC, in its “Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan” highlighted that the barriers limiting migrants’ access to the formal labour market also tend to push them towards self-employment at the same time pointing out that “notwithstanding that migrants have higher business creation rates than the rest of the population they fail more due to a lack of information, knowledge and language skills”.
The specific objectives of ECoDeW are as follows:
– Understanding the composition, problems and needs of disadvantaged migrants facing the difficulties of accessing local labour markets and intending to launch their own a business;
– Co-creation and testing of a tailor-made scheme of training and mentoring for supporting young migrants to reach their objectives;
– Raising wider public attention towards the situation of third country nationals intending to start an active entrepreneurial life in Europe by enlarging the existing network of organisations, people and companies supporting them and formulating policy recommendations towards the relevant public bodies for improving the conditions of migrant entrepreneurship.
ECoDeW methodology is grounded on Co-Design based Training, Mentoring and Storytelling to be used as a tool for needs assessment but also as part of the co-design of the training curriculum and the pilot trainings. Mentoring schemes will be used as means of knowledge and experience transfer between established and potential entrepreneurs.
