Young Women as Job Creators II

Overall project value (EUR): 311.827,38 €
Date: March 2015 - March 2016
Scale of the investigations: Albania, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine
Contract no: -
Coordinator: AFAEMME
Direct partners involved: Albanian national, professional, businesswomen and crafts' association (SHGPAZ), Egyptian Business Women Association (EBWA), Jordan Forum for Business and Professional Women (JFBPW), Association Femmes Chefs d'Entreprises du Maroc (AFEM), Chambre Nationale des Femmes Chefs d'Entreprises Tunisie (CNFCE), Business and Professional Women Ramallah Club (BPW-Palestine),

The project promotes self-employment and entrepreneurship among young women university students who are about to graduate and with an interest in starting their own business. Via this project, the talented young women finishing their tertiary education will be assisted in becoming successful businesswomen. Specific activities will be:

1)WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP DAYS. These WEDs will consist of seminars about: Skills for job creation, Self-motivation and motivation, Key points for setting up a company
Key legislative issues, National entrepreneurship incentives system, Business planning with a gender perspective, Risk Assessment, Coaching for entrepreneurship, Benefits of making your business a green one, EXCHANGES WITH MENTORS (successful national businesswomen, successful green women entrepreneurs), NETWORKING ENCOUNTERS with students, entrepreneurs and businesswomen and a TALENT SEARCH CONTEST (selection of best business ideas)

2) FREE START-UP ADVICE: Those participants who already have a business idea will have free access to the business creation advice services offered by the collaborating national Businesswomen Associations. There, they will receive support in formulating the Business Plan.

3) TRAINING IN MARKETING, FINANCE AND MANAGEMENT: In order to guarantee the success and the durability of the potentially created start-ups it is crucial that the future young business owners have some fundamental business skills which young graduates do not necessarily have. Therefore, those participants who were advised by the national businesswomen associations and seriously worked on developing the corresponding business plan because they really decided to embark in the start-up adventure, will have access to a series of group training courses on marketing, management and financial literacy.

4) INDIVIDUAL MENTORING: The participants who successfully went though the training modules will obtain individual mentoring in all the areas where they need support in order to achieve the goal of business creation. This might be support in accessing finance (the participants will learn how to approach potential investors and lenders), general coaching, support in going through the administrative and legal steps of starting-up …

At the end of the project, there will be a minimum of 600 young women who benefitted from the program, with at least 60 new businesses successfully running in the region.