Pal-Think concludes the «Ambassadors of Freedom & Entrepreneurship» radio programme

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies concluded the final radio episode of the Ambassadors of Freedom and Entrepreneurship programme, titled “The pandemic's repercussions on youth opportunities and small enterprises and how to overcome them”, which was broadcast at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays — within the project “Empowering youth in entrepreneurship and small enterprises”, implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies with funding from the Atlas Network, to develop entrepreneurs' skills and strengthen their access to their own enterprises to drive the wheel of the Palestinian economy.

The entrepreneurial-projects consultant Dr Raed Helles said the programme Pal-Think implemented is distinctive and plants the culture of entrepreneurship in the minds of the trainees, who work in earnest to educate their peers through workshops, seminars, and radio episodes.

He explained that he sensed a clear passion in the trainees, especially in writing the research papers they produced with full professionalism and mastery.

As for small enterprises, the economic expert said they are very important to the economy, for they work to lower unemployment rates among the youth of the Gaza Strip — which have become the highest in the world.

Despite the advantages of entrepreneurial projects for society and for the individual, many young people head toward searching for a job rather than establishing their own enterprises, given the high risk, according to Helles.

He affirmed that several economic sectors benefited from the corona pandemic — such as the medical-industries sector and the clothing industry — and others collapsed, such as tourism; pointing out that the Palestinian economy is fragile, having grown and formed in an environment filled with many intertwined risks: the division, the blockade, the wars and repeated rounds and escalations, and the corona pandemic.

Helles continued: “The corona pandemic caused grave harm to the economies of the major states, and formed an economic shock to all sectors in Palestine because of the procedures and measures taken to face the crisis, such as curfews and total closure”.

He showed that the scale of the corona pandemic's harm to the Palestinian economy reached 2.2 billion dollars, and that the number of workers harmed was 160 thousand — then came the latest aggression and made matters worse.

He called on the private sector to fund small entrepreneurial projects.

He concluded by saying: “The current generation of youth is a creative generation. Despite all the injustice, the challenges, the blockade, and the repeated wars, it must exploit crises and problems to generate ideas for entrepreneurial projects”.

For her part, the trainee Israa Thabet said Pal-Think's training taught them to think from a unique entrepreneurial angle to create entrepreneurial ideas that solve existing problems — pointing out that they laid down plans and feasibility studies to carry out many entrepreneurial ideas through teams of trainees in the spirit of a single team.

She added: “I could not have carried out any entrepreneurial project before this training. Had I done so, failure would have been the project's fate”.

The trainee advised young people to choose entrepreneurial projects that suit the culture and beliefs of Gazan society, and to abide by the prevailing regulations and laws to guarantee their projects' success.

She concluded by saying that the difference between the entrepreneur and others is that the former looks at crises as an opportunity to establish a private project yielding income through solving the crisis, while the ordinary person looks at the problem as an obstacle. At the very time giant enterprises collapsed because of the corona pandemic, many entrepreneurs made use of enterprises operating over the internet and achieved satisfying profits.