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Carlos is a social entrepreneur originally from Colombia and created Populaire Café with a couple of friends to promote, fairly traded, farmers coffee from his country of origin. He got support from La Ruche, The Human Safety Net Refugee Start-Up partner in France to improve its social business model, and realized they need to invest more in marketing. When the pandemic hit 90% of their business base made of restaurants and cafès, they started to find new sources of income to survive during lockdown. Now they deliver their fair trade coffee all around Paris by bike, helping other refugees along the way.
When lockdown hit Paris, both Carlos and Sina had to reinvent their work: as a social entrepreneur, Carlos and his colleagues needed to find new sources of income while Sina, who is in charge of the incubator for refugee entrepreneurs in Montreuil worked out how to keep supporting their 26 start-ups even if the incubator was closed.
Listen to their voice or read the full interview here.
Because they are used to fight against bad circumstances, entrepreneurs with a refugee background have an ability and the mindset to overcome the most adverse circumstances. Olaf, head of the Social Impact Lab in Munich and THSN partner for Refugee Start-Ups in Germany is optimistic. He thinks that it might take more time for refugee entrepreneurs to understand if their business works, but they will make it also through this challenge.
We talked to Stefanie, Project Manager at FITT gGmbh in Germany, who explained how COVID-19 outbreak had impacted their work. To continue supporting refugees to create their own business, FITT rapidly reorganized its activities online and provided help to all entrepreneurs. With the hope of being able to laugh together soon. Watch the video to learn more.