Haluatko yrittäjäksi? (Want to be an entrepreneur?) -info sessions by the City of Jyväskylä
About this good practice
Ukraine’s on-going situation is constantly forcing people from Ukraine as well as Russia to migrate and the same brought them to Finland as well in large numbers. This showed up as a surge in the number of unemployed job seekers registered in Finnish Employment Services in various municipalities. Owing to the challenges related to job search, a lot of people were interested in entrepreneurship and began asking for advice. Despite the entrepreneurial spirit, it involved certain inhibitions and apprehensions due to lack of proper information, especially in a new country. City of Jyväskylä’s Maahanmuuttaneiden Osaamiskeskus (Expertise Centre for Immigrants) came up with a series of short and concise info sessions to provide essential information on starting and running a business to the budding entrepreneurs residing in the region.
Implementing this practice involves arranging once a week 2-hour open info sessions in Russian and easy to understand Finnish language over a period of one month every spring and summer on topics such as:
- How to start a new enterprise?
- What is a start-up grant and how to secure it?
- How light entrepreneurship could work as a viable option?
- How to manage finances (accounting and book keeping etc.)?
- How to take care of taxation?
This serves as an encouragement and aids in lowering the threshold for venturing into entrepreneurship as well as catering to the needs and demands of the target group.
Resources needed
2 career coaches (work-partners) interact with the clients, select the topics, invite a suitable guest and arrange other logistics. Experienced guests are invited to share practical knowledge and tips. Possible interpretation needs and renting meeting places to be considered. Worktime ~4hrs/session
Evidence of success
4 info sessions conducted in Oct 2023 gathered about 15 participants. Spring 2024 sessions are being planned for March. The practice was conceived on demand and has received enormous positive feedback from its target group. There have been 10 reported startups by migrants during 2022-2023 (however cannot be associated directly with this practice). It has attracted attention Legislative Employment Services’s as well as other partners’ attention, from where clients are directed to these sessions
Potential for learning or transfer
The demand for Haluatko yrittäjäksi? (Want to be an entrepreneur?) -info sessions from the target group highlights the prevalence of a strong entrepreneurial spirit among immigrants. European job markets being so certificate-centric do not leave much space for adequate utilization of practical skills and experience a person holds coming from outside of the EU, where people tend to be inducted into varied occupations at a very young age building upon generations of experience and expertise. Practices such as this help in tapping into this hidden potential eventually contributing to the region’s economy at large. This practice model , though started for a specific set of people, is flexible and adaptable to the needs of a wider user group and target audience. At the same time it is is cost effective in terms of resources required, thus making it a transferable good practice
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Good practice owner
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