Page 153 - guidance-supporting-europe-s-aspiring-entrepreneurs-policy-and-practice-to-harness-future-potential

Guidance supporting Europe’s aspiring entrepreneurs
Policy and practice to harness future potential

One successful approach is to set up offices in the middle of the hard-to-
reach communities, while at the same time creating a style attractive to the target
public with good referral networks. For example, in order to set up the
Copenhagen Business Centre, the project officers first spent six months of
intensive outreach in targeting particular areas of the shopping district of the city
that are dominated by migrant populations. In doing so it managed to create the
trust and rapport necessary to encourage its target clients to attend the business
38
centre when it opened ( ).
Another approach is to train local NGO's to provide business advice, thereby,
building on the trust they have acquired within their communities. An EQUAL
project from France targeted migrants living in the deprived Parisian suburbs who
principally come from sub-Saharan Africa, are illiterate and have been working in
39
the informal economy. ADIE ( ) used links within the communities and word-of-
mouth contacts to reach out to members of the community (principally women)
and encourage them to bring their traditional activities such as crafts production
into the mainstream.
Other examples of such outreach work are illustrated in Example 37.

Example 37. Business support outreach projects funded by EQUAL Initiative

Bridge (Hungary):
• staff on the Bridge project managed to reach the target Roma community by working through
the local community council.

Faith in business project (London, UK):
• pastors in African Caribbean Baptist churches help inform African and Caribbean migrants in
their congregations about community business support resources.

Transformando (Madrid, Spain):
• staff engage with migrant communities on the street. They try to attract potential clients who
would not be prepared to come into a formal office and identity or nationality papers are not
requested. The project is based on a respectful and proactive attitude and further clients are
recruited by word-of-mouth.

Another way of supporting migrant entrepreneurs includes holistic, business
incubator types of environment, offering services that help young businesses to
grow. Statistics show that they are very successful in improving survival rates,
raising the three-year survival rate of new business from 50% to 85% (Johnson et
al., 2008). Positive and recognisable roles models also help to encourage new
and diverse people into the entrepreneurial sector, so awareness-raising and
media support can help significantly with this.

38
( ) Available from Internet:
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/equal/jsp/dpComplete.jsp?cip=DK&national=42 [cited 28.8.2010].
39
( ) Available from Internet: http://www.adie.org/ [cited 28.8.2010].

147