Changing the Refugee Youth Experience

International education organization Hello Future is preparing to launch the first-ever small business incubator for refugee teens as part of its 2021 course offerings.

Hello Future is a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the refugee youth experience from alone, stuck, and forgotten to connected and empowered. Working with teens living in refugee camps in Iraqi Kurdistan, its integrated curriculum combines 21st-century skills that U.S. schools are still in the process of adopting.

Our Small Business Incubator for Refugees lifts teens out of refugee camps and into a more stable, self-reliant future.

The capstone to Hello Future’s series of courses is its new Small Business Incubator for Refugees. This is a radical departure from existing skills-training programs where the focus is on training the refugees in a single trade. What Hello Future has designed is essentially a condensed MBA program with portable, transferable knowledge that can withstand changes in market conditions.

Much like a standard MBA program, students will learn from case studies of existing businesses and flesh out a viable business plan for their ideas, complete competitor analysis and an ideal customer profile, and develop a marketing plan. The incubator will also provide mentorship opportunities with business leaders to help guide the students. Upon graduation, each student will be awarded a small grant to help them jump-start their business.

“Being a refugee does not diminish a person’s ability to dream big dreams, but it does severely limit their access to the education and opportunities they need to achieve that dream. We want to offer our students those missing steps and build a 21st-century model for self-reliance,” said Hello Future Executive Director Charlie Grosso. “With expert mentorship and an innovative curriculum, our new Small Business Incubator for Refugees will afford our students the opportunity to turn their dreams and business ideas into a reality—thereby helping to lift them and their families out of the camps and into a more stable, self-reliant future.”

Hello Future has developed an intensive program taught by local instructors in the students’ native language, where refugee youth learn essential digital technology skills, gain psychosocial support, entrepreneurship, critical thinking skills, and storytelling skills.

To date, Hello Future’s impact includes a 100% program retention rate and an average 89% graduation rate. Post-session student surveys show a 56% increase in positive beliefs about the future, with 97% of students saying that what they learned in Hello Future’s program will be helpful in getting a better job.

Edited by Maryssa Gordon, Senior Editor, Price of Business Digital Network