The Brussels secretaries of state Barbara Trachte (Ecolo, Economic Transition) and Nawal Ben Hamou (PS, Equal Opportunities) are launching a second call for the ‘Women in Business’ project. With this they want to support female entrepreneurs. A total of 500,000 will be divided over eight projects.
The number of women with a self-employed status in Brussels has already increased by thirty percent in ten years. Yet there are still 2.5 times more men than women working as a self-employed person. This was revealed by hub.brussels’ latest female entrepreneurship barometer.
A total of 39 projects applied, but eight were ultimately selected on the basis of criteria such as the quality of the guidance offered and the compatibility of the target group with the inclusion objective of the call. The budget per project will vary from 35,000 to 100,000 euros.
Accompaniment
In concrete terms, the winners will have to provide mentorship, mutual aid and coaching programs, activities and events for female (candidate) entrepreneurs.
“The guidance offered by the projects of ‘Women in Business’ is essential to ensure that women, in all their diversity, can concretely realize their professional interests and thus guarantee their economic and financial freedom,” said Ben Hamou.
Trachte also finds this guidance important. “Creating your own professional activity is an opportunity for many Brussels women to emancipate themselves. The aim of this call for projects is to support mentoring initiatives so that they help aspiring female entrepreneurs to develop their activity.”
This article is originally published on bruzz.be
