Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship Program
- Sector: Entrepreneurship and training of small businesses
- Location: North Lebanon, Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and Saida
Project overview
Since 2010, following a feasibility study, Semeurs d’Avenir have been implementing a program to support small businesses, craftsmen, and traders in Tripoli and the regions of the North, along with its partner IECD.
In Lebanon, more than 28% of the population live under the poverty threshold. At the same time, there are many small businesses that have the potential of growth, particularly in North Lebanon. This potential is not fulfilled because small businesses do not have basic management skills.
As a result of this study, IECD and Semeurs d’Avenir found the needs of these institutions and their owners revolve around the following matters:
- Enhance the administrative skills of small and emerging enterprise owners to manage their interests in developing and maintaining their activities.
- Improve the living conditions of small and emerging enterprise owners through improving work performance.
- Create communication networks and cooperation between small and emerging enterprise owners in neighboring regions.
The Entrepreneurship Program in Semeurs d’Avenir has broaden its actions today, by addressing three different publics: The small entrepreneurs, the start-ups, and the fresh graduates.
1. Small Enterprise Development Program (TPE)
The program includes training in business administration and entrepreneurship, divided into ten sessions, two hours per session.
In addition to management skills, the owner of the project / institution, who participates in the program, benefits from the following services:
- Four individual follow-up sessions during the course to ensure clarity of information.
- Coaching: individual follow-up extending for a period of one year from the project’s completion date.
- Specialized courses in marketing and e-marketing, accounting and financial management, computer technology, and most recently crisis management.
- Discussion sessions and specialized workshops with experts on topics of interest to the trainees, such as time management, risk management, social media marketing, etc.
- Obtain records (fund ledger and debt book) to help organize the work.
- Obtain brochures with the content of the training sessions.
- Reward in kind for the best-developed projects: a project presentation at the end of the training with a jury consisting of the trainer, the project area manager, and an expert external to the project.
2. Skills for your business
In 2017, the Skills for Your Business project was launched to support the entrepreneurial skills for youth between 18 to 35 years old, who wish to establish their own business, enabling them to launch and manage their own projects in the following regions: North Lebanon, Beirut, and Mount Lebanon.
There are many initiatives in Lebanon to promote entrepreneurship among the most vulnerable groups, the most prominent of which is entrepreneurship training.
The Skills for Your Business project implemented by IECD and Semeurs d’Avenir highlights the uniqueness of its objective and approach because it targets youth to help and guide them into self-employment.
The Skills for Your Business project uses the following methodology:
- Twelve training sessions, three hours each.
- One-to-one follow-up and on-the-ground support sessions during a 30-minute training period, focusing on market study and a business plan for each project.
- Individual follow-up sessions for an hour and a half, one year post-training.
- Reward in kind for the best-developed projects: a project presentation at the end of the training with a jury consisting of the trainer, the project area manager, and an expert external to the project.
Results of TPE and Skills for your Business
- Trained 360 small business owners in administrative skills per year.
- Trained about 300 young men and women on entrepreneurship skills to launch their projects.
- Implemented various workshops in light of the crisis on risk management, time management, e-marketing, etc.
- About 57 people benefited from specialized courses in marketing, computer technology, accounting, and financial management.
3. Social Business—ULEAP
To aid BT Electrotechnics graduates in acquiring the necessary competence and skills to join the labor market, Semeurs d’Avenir created the concept of a Social Business (SB).
In the beginning, SB was a small initiative, hiring young inexperienced graduates for a few months to help them strengthen their skillset with real-world projects, applying their newfound knowledge in a practical setting. This gave fresh graduates the leverage to find a salaried position with companies looking for well-trained employees.
Eventually, the projects grew bigger and in greater complexity. Training electrical graduates became imperative and professionalism at work grew too, which metamorphosed into a new initiative in 2021: ULEAP was born to cater for this demand.
ULEAP follows the Social Business model, giving it stronger legal and business aspects. It operates under the supervision of accomplished engineers who empower young Electrotechnics graduates. ULEAP has a substantial portfolio of successful ventures under its belt, sold both in Lebanon and abroad and inline with partner companies’ needs.
ULEAP offers clients and organizations a high level of electrical products and services, and already has considerable experience with large/medium-sized projects, including Maxline, Alfa Telecom, Syspro, Tecmo and others.
ULEAP fulfills a niche in this economic crisis. Harvesting electrical technicians under expert guidance and mentorship is essential to resetting the infrastructure of the country moving forward and to find a way out of its current crises.
ULEAP reflects the electrical client dependency of the Lebanese market and beyond, deploying proven, quality industrial-grade products and solutions.
To check ULEAP’S website click here.
The Lebanese non-governmental organization, Semeurs d’Avenir, was founded in 2010 with the support of the European Institute for Cooperation and Development (IECD), in order to put in place a local structure that can carry on and ensure the sustainability of projects launched by the IECD in Lebanon with its local partners. Semeurs d’Avenir is the main partner of IECD in Lebanon.
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