THE AFRICAN COURIER. Reporting Africa and its Diaspora! The African Courier is an international magazine published in Germany to report on Africa and the Diaspora African experience. The first issue of the bimonthly magazine appeared on the newsstands on 15 February 1998. The African Courier is a communication forum for European-African political, economic and cultural exchanges, and a voice for Africa in Europe.
AfricanTide Union, an organization that runs a refugee shelter and multiple programs for migrants and refugees in Dortmund, Germany, inaugurated its latest project on Monday, 9 April.
Under the name “Friend”, the association now offers regular training for entrepreneurs with a migration background.
“People with a migration background are quick to take entrepreneurial risk. However, it often comes to the usual beginner mistakes in the first few months and years,” says Dr RosaLyn Dressman, chairperson of AfricanTide Union. With “Friend” many hurdles to sustainable self-employment should be reduced.
Numerous aspects of managing a business such as accounting, taxation, labour law, corporate communication, diversity management and many more are to be covered in more than 80 lessons.
“Above all else, we want to use our contents to convey an awareness of what counts today for a successful business management. A good idea must be implemented with the right strategy,” says Norbert Tschirpke, education director at AfricanTide Union.
The entire project is being implemented in co-operation with the Fernuniversität Hagen, the DGB Ostverband Hagen and the Social Partnership of the Westfalen-Münsterland Retail Association (Sozialpartnerschaft des Einzelhandelsverbandes Westfalen-Münsterland).
The project is primarily aimed at interested entrepreneurs in the retail trade in Dortmund and Hagen. In an evaluation phase, employees of the Fernuniversität Hagen will determine the requirements of the participants with the highest priority. Afterwards, experts from the various fields will offer solutions via video tutorial.
AfricanTide Union runs the training programme in two languages. The participants can decide for themselves which language they prefer. Using a chat function, experts answer the questions of the participants.
The need for the programme was already clear at the well-attended kick-off event. After a successful implementation in Dortmund an expansion of the project to other cities is planned.
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There’s hardly anyone more qualified to help migrants and refugees new to Germany than former newcomers themselves is the conviction of AfricanTide Union.
Based in Dortmund, an industrial city with roughly 600,000 residents in western Germany, the organization not only runs two day care centres, but also a variety of programs for adult migrants and refugees. These include German classes and computer seminars aimed at qualifying people for the German job market. AfricanTide also runs a shelter for young refugee men aged 18 to 25 who came to Germany without their families as unaccompanied minors.
Femi Awoniyi
More information on Friend at http://friend.africantide.com
