On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 a female entrepreneurship event was held in the city of Lamia. More specifically, the Embassy of the United States of America, Orange Grove of the Dutch Embassy, BridgeHub and RurAction have joined forces to organize a women’s entrepreneurship event in the city of Lamia for the first time. The event took place on the front porch of Studio Project Photography. About 50 women were gathered there alongside the BridgeHub team and its partners. The age ranged from 18 to 60, and the profile ranged from students, to entrepreneurs and employees, and from mothers to single women, thus covering the entire spectrum of the female population of the city.
The RurAction team -Mara, Sunna and Georgios- developed a survey (download here – in greek) by drawing elements from Eurobarometer (European Commission, 2019), Women’s Economic Empowerment Working Group ́s practitioner brief (2016) and Oxfam ́s rapid care analysis (2016), in order to investigate the needs, barriers and opportunities that women in the area have with regard to entrepreneurship. The collection of the data was done through a very interactive process, in which posters of paradigmatic women’s entrepreneurial initiatives were put on discussion. The posters were developed by Mara and Sunna from their international research experience. Georgios facilitated the discussion accordingly.
The results were discussed among the attendees, creating the conditions for a constructive brainstorming. At the same time, the women of the area got to know each other. They exchanged knowledge and experiences. They created bases for new friendships and business activities. The data gathered will be further analysed, with a view to the next event in December. There, women-centred entrepreneurship efforts will be designed, so that the ideas of women in Fthiotida can materialize in the future.
Georgios
photo credit: Stevia Hellas Cooperative