Young Entrepreneur Story Archive

Meet the fantastic young BME entrepreneurs who tell us how the programme at Social for Social Entrepreneurs has helped them bring their ideas to fruition.

Meet Tania Gessi of the Roma Cultural Centre

Meet Patrice Ferguson of Inspired Interactions

Meet Idil Hassan of Midaye SEED

Meet Adwoa of the Ghanaian Londoners Network

Meet Armando Conte of Contekunda Productions

Tania Gessi

Tania Gessi is currently an employee for the Roma Support Group (RSG) as a Roma Art Development Worker. Her ambition is to establish the Roma Cultural Centre which would be a trading arm of the RSG. Through the support of the School for Social Entrepreneurs she is on her way to achieving this ambition.

At present there is not a Roma Cultural Centre in Western or Eastern Europe and the Roma community is the only ethnic minority group not to have a cultural centre. Such a centre would be unique to the United Kingdom. The Centre would act as a conduit to celebrate the Roma cultural history and enable Roma people to better integrate into British Society. It would also provide a platform to carry out research to raise awareness about the Roma community - it would be a repository of the Roma culture, and a place for non-Roma people to find out more about the Roma community.

Within the Roma community there is a long history of prejudice, mistrust, and stigma attached, which often creates barriers to collaboration with external agencies. For example, Tania is seeking premises to house the Roma Cultural Centre and the local council is the obvious choice for collaboration. However it has been difficult to engage with the council. Therefore Tania has been going door-to-door to find potential supporters and collaborators with the project.

For Tania, learning from ECAP has been very positive. There are two elements she attributes to her development. The first is coaching. The programme delivery acts as a life coach to encourage your initial idea and support you in making it into something more tangible. And secondly the access to resources and information is targeted and allows for knowledge to be applied more easily.

“It has been very positive, I really like it. It is great because it’s very inspiring. You get to meet, listen to and speak to a variety of people who have become successful social entrepreneurs.”   

Patrice Ferguson

Patrice Ferguson’s background is in youth and community work. She set up Inspired Interactions having been a young mother with very little friends and family to talk to about problems and issues she was facing.

So she used her community skills and experiences to establish a community project to seek to empower and support the community to make the changes needed to facilitate personal, social and emotional development through Arts, Culture, Natural Health and Wellbeing, Skills sharing and Enterprise. Inspired Interaction is based on the principle that each person has something they can share with another.

Like many VCOs at present, lack of funding is a problem. Patrice’s organisation has only managed to receive small pockets of funding with no funding coming from the statutory sector. Despite this, Inspired Interactions has gone from strength to strength due to the commitment, investment and dedication of Patrice and her colleagues. The organic nature of the project has attracted the attention of a number of organisations that have seized on the opportunity to partner up with the Inspired Interaction project. This includes working with the National Association of Black Supplementary Schools to provide extra help and tuition for young people that are finding it difficult in the education system.

For Patrice, learning from ECAP has provided a platform of support which allows her to access mentors from the business world and community world.

It’s great to be in a place where people have time for you, you are the focus and your aim to get your project done and to a high standard is their dream as well.

More on Inspired Interactions  

Idil Hassan

Idil Hassan is graduating from the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) in March 2011. Among the graduates this year, 15 social entrepreneurs were supported by SSE’s Enterprising Community Advisors Programme (ECAP) which delivered a 12 month practical part-time learning programme for aspiring social entrepreneurs who suffered inequality and disadvantage. ECAP’s aim was to support communities to set up new organisations and expand existing ones to represent their communities’ interests. Learning by ECAP enabled Idil to ‘put a structure in place’ to improve marketing for Midaye SEED – a programme of support founded by Idil.

Learning from ECAP has been very encouraging. SSE drives you to your objectives faster than you could imagine.

Idil is passionate to help long term unemployed especially Somali-British women, who have never worked in the UK, to gain skills and employment. She founded Midaye SEED designed to deliver tailored skills, education, employment and development to the most disadvantaged BME communities in Kensington and Chelsea, the City of Westminster and adjacent boroughs.

Midaye SEED supports long term unemployed and in particular Somali-British women that are below the unemployment line, who regard themselves to be ‘unemployable’ due to the extreme number of barriers they face for example, language (not being able to read/write), education (lack schooling/ learning difficulties),and economic deprivation (suffer from sustained poverty) due to lack of available options. The idea is to plant the SEED that guides, supports and empowers these people as without intervention their circumstances will remain the same for many years to come.

Idil feels positive about the potential of her programme of support. Learning from ECAP has helped her ‘sell the offer’ and market ideas better.

With these improved marketing skills, I have been able to develop new partnerships with organisations and businesses. Now I have more clients offering work placements to skilled Somali women and training organisations to skill-up more women coming in for support.

Idil informed that as the SSE course comes to an end, her peers at SSE have formed a support network to continue to meet and support each other on their projects.

More from Idil Hassan

Adwoa Agyemang

Adwoa founded Ghanaian Londoners Network in February 2009, a social enterprise which unlocks the potential and encourages Ghanaians in UK and the Diaspora to use their power, skills and knowledge to advance change in their lives, make social impact and contribute to the development of their community.

“If SSE’s support can be described in one word than it would be ‘clarity’. What SSE does is to give people like myself the opportunity to engage their target groups with clarity and with confidence that our ideas are good and workable," said Adwoa

Adwoa feels that the Ghanaian community in London faces range of challenges. Adwoa is most concerned by the disconnect in the community where class differences overshadow cultural and lingual similarities.

"Our common origin should lead us to know each other better and to help not only our fellow Ghanaians here in UK but also in Ghana. There is a perception about our community of lack of education but we have so many Ghanaians who are well educated and doing well. Educated and un-educated need to talk and should have the space to share their thoughts. To bridge this understanding gap, I founded Ghanaians Londoners Network."

Adwoa is also concerned about the brain-drain in Ghana with educated people moving out of the country for better opportunities. Adwoa volunteers to visit Ghana and help people establish small enterprises. She feels other Ghanaians can do the same to contribute to the development of their country of origin.

Ghanaians Londoners Networks provide a space for professionals and non-professionals to meet, share and learn new ideas from each other. This sharing of ideas and skills develops their entrepreneurial strengths to learn and apply these ideas into practice. Its mission is to enhance and expand the capacity of Ghanaians in the Diaspora to contribute to Ghana’s development through enterprise development.

Adwoa’s experience of learning at SSE has been ‘great’. The training has helped her to diversify income sources for the Network, enhance organisational development and structures and learn better models in giving advice and guidance to people who approach the Network.

More about Ghanaian Londoners Network
 

Armando Conte

Armando Conte started Contekunda Productions to help Protugese Afraicans become more self-reliant. Armando felt that lack of education and understanding of society has been the biggest challenge facing Portuguese Africans in Britain. Many do not integrate in the society because they think they will not be able to keep their community identity – most confuse integration with assimilation. And so, Armando explains, his community lives on the margins of the society.

“It’s been 18 years since I came here. I knew little English but this did not stop me to use my communication skills and experience as a journalist to fight barriers that were facing me. In my journey to live an active life in this society, I learnt that to help my community I will need address this lack of understanding that exist between Portuguese Africans and the system that governs our society.

I worked with social services as an interpreter. From this experience I came to know that the community I represent does not always understand the support system available to us and often expect more when it comes to asking for support. I wanted to help them. I wanted to say to them that ‘come on friends. We did it in Africa, why can’t we do that here.’ I wanted to break barriers that prevent us to help our selves and live an active life.” Armando explained.

‘Drop of Your Heart’ and ‘Contekunda Productions’ – Armando’s enterprises use film, drama and radio and print media to improve understanding of Portuguese Africans about services available to them and limitations with in the system. They educate them to help themselves and support and integrate in the society they live in.

Armando Conte is the first Portuguese African to study at SSE. Armando has been a journalist since 1983 (including BBC World Service), a professional linguist (fluent in 7 languages) and an associate researcher. His enterprise ‘Drop of Your Heart’ promotes self reliance for Portuguese Africans in the UK in education, employability, family mediation and youth activities.

“Learning from ECAP has been great! All my ideas and abilities came together. I had many ideas, skills and experience. ECAP helped me to explore and grow every single potential I have and apply these into practices. I am thankful to SSE for the rest of my life.” said Armando.

More about Contekunda Productions