“Empreender” was the word most often cited yesterday at the Cine-Teatro Louletano, during the Workshop “Entrepreneurship and Creating Your Own Job”, an initiative reissued by the Municipality of Loulé, after the strong adhesion of the first session, last November, at the Center Municipality of Quarteira.
With a completely full audience, mainly made up of young people looking for their first job or unemployed people looking to find ways to create their own job, the guest panel brought some useful information but also the very important incentive in this matter.
In the welcome session, Seruca Emídio spoke about the expectations of the participants, “in an opportunity to find the path for their lives, for their work, for their profession”. The mayor referred to the “complicated moment” that the country is going through. “Expectations force us to resort to everything, always hoping to find a livelihood, a way to put our knowledge into practice. We have to adapt to what is offered to us, in a paradigm completely different from what has been the reality until today”, considered the mayor.
Referring to the Algarve as “the region of the country that is being most penalized by this situation, after having been the region of the country that brought the most income”, the mayor believes that the situation could be reversed if there is a commitment to creativity. “This is a region very dependent on tourism and construction and this break has had dramatic results for all of us. Today, more and more, specialization is needed. We are unable to compete with other tourist destinations, particularly in Europe. There is a niche in the market, with imagination and creativity, and also taking advantage of what is favorable to us, we have possibilities to resume our path of development and employment”, he stressed.
Carlos Baía, regional delegate of the Employment and Professional Training Institute, spoke of unemployment as “a national problem, with accentuated contours in the region”. “The public employment services are motivated to try to solve, within the mechanisms and instruments that exist, the problem of those who are looking for them. But everyone's support will never be too much”, he considered.
Faced with the increase in unemployment numbers, this regional official praised the availability of all those in this situation and who, “through their own means, want to change their situation and create their own job, which is a point of match".
Regarding entrepreneurship, Carlos Baía spoke of the need for entrepreneurship modules within schools. In this context, he pointed to the Strategic Program for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, whose objectives are to stimulate an entrepreneurial culture in education, create and strengthen networks for sharing experiences and strengthen the connection between companies and universities.
Finally, the regional delegate described the concept of “entrepreneur” as “the person who has the ability to see and assess business opportunities, find the resources to put them into practice, initiate the appropriate action to ensure their success, assess the scratchs".
This was followed by an intervention by councilor Aníbal Moreno, the main promoter of the initiative, who left some warnings for those present who intend to create their own business. “It's good to dream, but with your feet on the ground. Being an entrepreneur is having an attitude, having innovative ideas. It is necessary to be able to gather the necessary resources and be available to face the risks. It means working a lot and a lot more than you expect and taking on a lot more responsibility than you think today. Being successful means innovating and staying ahead of the competition. Partnerships with collaborators and alliances with competitors are also important”, said the municipal official.
Faced with a globalized world, Aníbal Moreno said that today it is necessary to be even “more creative”.
In a final word of encouragement to the participants, this councilor left the example of Sandra Correia, 40 years old, from S. Brás de Alportel, considered Entrepreneur of Europe 2011, prize awarded by the European Parliament and the European Council of Women Entrepreneurs
In the part of the panels themselves, the session began with the intervention of Vítor Madeira, from the Employment and Professional Training Institute, who presented the existing support programs to stimulate entrepreneurship and the creation of companies, granted by that Institute, also highlighting the possibility of interested parties to apply to occupy premises in the Loulé Company Nest (CACE).
Laura Soares, representing the National Association for the Right to Credit, an entity with which the Municipality of Loulé signed a collaboration protocol, referred to the conditions of access to Social Microcredit.
This was followed by a presentation by João Carlos Monteiro, from Banco Millennium BCP and specialist in Microcredit. The speaker encouraged those present to use the conditions of that bank and presented a video with several examples of micro-entrepreneurs who managed to succeed in their business projects, using this type of loan.
Finally, Carlos Vieira, professor at the University of Algarve, spoke on the entrepreneurial attitude, captivating the audience and managing to convey a strong message of hope, enthusiasm and motivation to achieve the goals they intend to achieve. This was, by the way, a high end of the session.
Comments