Entrepreneurship among young women encouraged by a project funded by BFW
10 young women and girls aged 15-35 from the town of Lom will be included in an initiative for empowering through entrepreneurship. Within the WENTPower project the participants will receive training, mentoring and consulting for developing a business plan and two of them will also receive a scholarship for participating in the Youth Entrepreneurship Forum which will be held in Sofia in 2019. The Forum is organized by Kauzi (Causes) Foundation and this will be its 8th edition. Its’ goal is to introduce starting business and social ideas to potential investors – financing programs and organizations, banks, business angels. Every year start-up entrepreneurs receive personal consultations from representatives of organizations and institutions on how to shape their business and social ideas. A trend in recent years has been the focus on social entrepreneurship and some of the most successful practices of the Forum are precisely in this sphere.
The selection of participants in the WENTPower project will be based either on an application form, to be submitted online by 30 September 2018, or on an interview with the organizers. Candidates will describe their idea, potential for development and provide information for the team. The selected women and girls will be trained in business and marketing planning, finance, corporate social responsibility and presentation skills. Then, for three months, they will receive free consultations on the development of a business plan. The two best plans will receive scholarships to participate in the Youth Entrepreneurship Forum in 2019. Furthermore, the project will develop a short guide to practical business start-ups – legal framework, basic documents and procedures to be followed when registering a company or a non-governmental organization, accounting requirements and a list of contacts of institutions that are relevant to the business.
The project, funded by the Bulgarian Fund for Women, addresses social challenges that are relevant to the town and the region of Lom – poverty, social exclusion, domestic violence, and points out to entrepreneurship as an alternative career and life path.
More information and application documents can be found on the website of the Generation Foundation www.generation-bg.org.