MIGRANT TALENT GARDEN (MTG)
JOINT STUDY VISIT NORWAY | ICELAND
17th – 19th of June
Moving on to the completion of the first phase of the program, focusing mainly on researching the existing entrepreneurship support schemes in Europe, the partners visited Oslo and Reykjavík right after the mid of June.
The partners met at Caritas Norway, the hosting organization for the first bit of the study visit, to briefly go over the agenda of the meeting and discuss on its structure. The day visit was structured around guest speakers from different entities – Elisabeth Weckner from the Caritas Centre for immigrants, Nicolai Strom-Olsen and Maria Amelie from Start Up migrants and Rafael Garavito, course holder within entrepreneurship – that provided the partners with valuable insights on the different aspects of migrant entrepreneurship in Nothern Europe.
As far as the second part of the study visit taking place in Iceland is concerned, the meeting took place at the offices of Red Cross at Reykjavík. The meeting kicked off with a thorough presentation of RRC projects on immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers providing the context for the discussion group that followed. The partners also had the chance to get a first-hand experience on the practicalities and the legislative specificities within the Icelandic context by visiting the Directorate of Labour and witnessing some of the day-to-day procedures. The day proceeded with an open discussion on the obstacles more often faced when pursuing to set up a business in a foreign country and a focus group session with migrants sharing their own experiential perspective on entrepreneurship.
The study visit concluded with an hour long session on the project itself, the next steps, the accelerator scheme and the support network being developed and last but not least, on the evaluating methods and the conclusions drawn from the study visits across Europe up to now.
Find more on the program’s official website: migrantgarden.eu and European Institute for Local Development’s instagram: @eurolocaldevelopment.