Social Enterprise + Business Incubator + Refugees = … imagine the possibilities
It’s been brewing and morphing in our minds for the last year. Our neighborhood is filled with a culturally diverse richness, ripe with entrepreneurial possibilities. Local organization Northside UP has refugees with entrepreneurial spirits walking through its doors seeking out a helping hand to get a new business started sometimes on a daily basis. Unfortunately, most of them have little to no business acumen required in the US to actually pull that off. We here at Hopeprint are consistently hearing the desire of our refugee neighbors to find jobs, many of them desiring to put the skills they already have to work. When we try to match these desires with realistic job opportunities, it becomes clear quickly that there are little to no jobs available in our zip code. So what do we do?
After pondering on these questions for quite some time, a number of area leaders from various organizations gathered at the table last week to start dreaming together. With the minds and networks of Hopeprint, Northside UP, Cooperative Federal, the Small Business Development Center and the Tech Garden/Centerstate CEO at the table, the dreams are getting exciting.
Keep watching. They just might start coming true.
