Press release Irish Hub
Rolling Out the Enter to Transform Hub in Ireland
After months of promotion, the Irish Enter to Transform Training Programme kicked off on 19th October 2021. 30 participants from more than 15 nationalities joined the Irish team for a three-hour workshop designed to show recognised refugees that entrepreneurship is a real possibility for them. The training programme is being rolled out nationally with participants from locations all over the country. To accommodate this, the team has chosen to deliver all workshops via Zoom in a virtual format. It is hoped that is will improve accessibility and remove any logistical challenges that participants may face.
The main objective of the workshop was to raise awareness about opportunities in Irish entrepreneurship. This included delivering information relating to what it means to be an entrepreneur, what personal characteristics an entrepreneur needs to have, what the entrepreneurial ecosystem looks like in Irelandand how to join the Enter to Transform Training Programme to get started.
The workshop was delivered in a dual-language format, providing information in English and Arabic, devised to accommodate the large amount of participants who come from an Arabic-speaking background and may face barriers to entrepreneurship due to language difficulties. It is hoped that this approach will empower more newcomers to explore the possibility of being self-employed.
The Enter to Transform Team also organised for a guest speaker, Thoiba Ahmed of Donegal Intercultural Platform to discuss aspects of cultural awareness with participants. This was included in a bid to introduce Irish culture to participants who may not have fully integrated socially into their new homeland.
Project Manager Juanita Blue states “When we started promoting the training, we had no idea how many candidates would register to join. We are delighted to see such a high turn-out and really hope the participants will continue to attend upcoming workshops where we address aspects of the Stand-Up, Start-Up and Scale Up phases of entrepreneurship in Ireland”.
The workshops will continue weekly until the end of December when participants will move to the one-to-one mentoring element of the training programme. The Enter to Transformteam are excited to see the forthcoming results, and hope that many recognised refugees will benefit from the training.
