Social Enterprise - Making Money Matters!

This project is being delivered by FATIMA Women's Network to increase the diversity of social enterprises in the East Midlands by growing the number of social enterprises developed within and by individuals and groups from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic & Refugee (BAMER) communities. The focus is on raising awareness of and animating interest in social enterprise in BAMER communities leading to an increase in the creation of BAMER led social enterprises.

The launch event was held on March 28th in Leicester with over 150 people attending. Two clear messages came across according to CEO Parvin Ali, "A key theme that came out of the launch was a need for pre-pre-pre business start-up". In other words, support for entrepreneurs before they even consider setting-up as a social enterprise. This was particularly true of individuals who were either in employment or planning to set up an enterprise after the children started school.

"We also found that many people still have no idea what a social enterprise is so we want to start a campaign to get all social enterprises identifying themselves as a social enterprise. This could easily be done by having a line at the bottom of your emails that says we are a social enterprise. That way the term will start to enter people's vocabulary and will help the public better understand what a social enterprise is".

FATIMA have produced a short film of the event and a number of interviews. The next step is to hold a number of sub-regional events over the coming months, and FATIMA is keen to have a particular theme so the next one is to be focussing on young people.

The Eupropean Network of Migrant Women's


The European Network of Migrant Women is a pan-European organisation comprising national migrant women's groups in each of the member states. ENoM is supported by the European Women's Lobby and came about when a conference was held in Jan 2007 in Brussels. Details of the 3 day event and the recommendations can be found in the report "Migrant Women:Equal Rights-Equal Voices". The network primarily supports advocacy organisations which are led by migrant women. It will be holding a high profile launch event in Brussels in May this year. FATIMA is on the board.

FEM-EU Link

Fem EU-Link is the national platform for migrant women which was set up in Dec 2009 after a series of roundtable discussions to identify priorites for migrant women in the UK. FATIMA is the Co-ordinator and secretariat for this platform.There are currently 15 national platforms in Europe.

Back To Top