TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Ismail Sehic
"Migrant in Fashion" (MF) aims at developing entrepreneurial competencies of female migrants in Europe within the Fashion sector through tested innovation in existing offer.
The methodological dimension of the project is based on the use of Digital Storytelling, Design Thinking and Mentoring as a combined, integrated approach of entrepreneurial development allowing the transition from intentions to action in the field of entrepreneurship.
Project target is composed of female migrants aged 18-35 affected by social exclusion. The targets encompass first and second-generation female immigrants.
MF is an approach grounded on transnational cooperation between VET providers, NGOs, and Businesses across a geographical
a cluster of countries providing a balanced picture of the present challenge of migrants' integration in Europe.
Eurostat quantifies in 164.300 the number of extra-EU nationals who sought asylum in the EU-28 during the third quarter of 2017, posing European countries before the challenge of hosting and integrating the newcomers.
Migrants in Europea countries face several barriers to integration, in societal, educational and employability terms. Newly arrived migrants, in particular, face complex challenges one of them being related to 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 European Commission, in its “Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan” highlighted the added value migrant categories can provide to European sustainable growth as potential entrepreneurs, due to the barriers limiting their access to the formal labor market also pushing them towards self-employment. Nevertheless, as the Commission has also highlighted “..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”. In the EU 2020 Strategy the necessity of ensuring access to education and training to enshrines the objectives of ensuring disadvantaged targets (including migrants and to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship at all levels in the educational field, also through promoting the acquisition of transversal key competences.
The female migrant population has to deal with additional challenges, encompassing cultural, language and gender disadvantag. They are therefore particularly in need of training targeted at work integration and entrepreneurship, as they are facing specific needs, challenges and constraints positioning them among the most fragile groups of our societies.
Fashion is a crucial component of national economies across the regions of North Africa and the Middle East, deeply rooted in local cultural peculiarities and traditional, small-scale modes of production and distribution. Building engagement and capacities of migrants in Fashion entrepreneurship will therefore not only contribute to overcome present barriers and skills mismatches but also lay the grounds for unleashing the added value of innovation inherent in the discovery of the market potential of culturally/traditionally rooted practices and products within the Fashion industry itself, also paving the way for enhancement of market relations between Europe and migrants’ home regions in terms of both trade volumes and quality.
Project target is composed of female migrants aged 18-35 affected by social exclusion. The targets encompass first and second-generation female immigrants. The project involved 2 targets of participants:
1- Female migrant entrepreneurs in the Fashion sector aged 25+. They will be involved in the Piloting of the Training Format delivered by the Consortium in I.O. 1.
2- Prospective female migrant entrepreneurs of firrst and second-generation aged 18-35 in need of acquiring competences and support for the concrete development of their own idea of a start-up business in Fashion. They will be involved in the phase of local activities in each partner country.
Participants were representing organizations from: Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden, but they were coming from all over the world.
Mostly of the method which was used in the project were Non-formal education and business methodologies. We were using different methods from different start-up ecosystems.
The focus groups have been based on appreciative inquiry methodology,
which enables participants to share their experiences in a positive and friendly
environment.
• Appreciative Enquiry is a model for which the ability to generate impact
does not depend on identifying obstacles and problems, but rather on
recognizing the positive elements that already exist within organizations
and communities.
• Appreciative inquiry allows identifying the best characteristics of a given
context and to imagine the possibilities of future growth through the use
of stories extracted during interviews.
The goal of the focus groups was to understand how MF can empower young
women with a migration background to start their own business in the fashion
industry, what learning needs are in need to be fulfilled, what tools and
competencies are required to start a successful activity.
The methodological dimension of the project is based on the use of Digital Storytelling, Design Thinking and Mentoring as a combined, integrated approach of entrepreneurial development allowing the transition from intentions to action in the field of entrepreneurship.
- Identification and assessment of female migrants' development need in the Fashion sector and of existing offer of entrepreneurial learning in the field.
- Development and piloting of blended learning training existing female entrepreneurs from each partner country in Mentoring within entrepreneurial education programs delivered for prospective female entrepreneurs at the country level. The program will integrate the co-design of the educational contents of local workshops with the participants.
- Implementation of local workshops of entrepreneurial development in the cultural field targeted at prospective female migrants in the fashion sector. The programs will be implemented in cooperation with local stakeholders in the business field through a combination of face-to-face learning, Mentoring and work-based learning.
- Created 4 different businesses
- 4 different Pitch Decks for Investors
- Prepared local activities
- Draft of the Manual
I was one of 3 trainers in the project. My part was at last 5 days of the training where we were working on creating businesses, business plans, and pitch decks. I am expert in the entrepreneurship and my expertise was very important for the outcomes of the project. I help participants to create 4 businesses, to prepare 4 pitch decks for investors and prepared them