EMPOWER is designed to encourage and support ethnic minority women entrepreneurs to achieve ‘phenomenal things’ with their businesses, however small they might be.

Vision: The vision of the programme is to see the emergence of well-informed, skilled, self-confident and empowered ethnic minority women entrepreneurs.

Through the Empower programme we can offer free business guidance, advice and expertise to ethnic minority women entrepreneurs in London, leading them to successful ventures. A number of the services we offer include; Business coaching, mentoring and effective on-site and on-line support.

To find out more about these as well as other services we offer, and further details about the Empower project please explore the links on the left. 

Based in the Business School at the University of East London, the EMPOWER project was developed to provide support to SME start-ups that are owned and managed by ethnic minority women.

Though newly established in 2004, the Empower project has a wealth of experience behind it who are committed to working with ethnic minorities.

The Empower project adopts a proactive approach, that is, taking aspects of the project to the actual location of those wishing to start-up businesses. In doing so, we believe that such a client-focused approach distinguishes ourselves from other business support programmes that are usually characterised by a ‘take it or leave it’ approach.

We intend to achieve this aim by promoting the growth and sustainability of ethnic minority women’s business start-ups. We seek to provide advice and mentoring in order to promote entrepreneurship and innovative forms of business enterprise among those who have been economically excluded from the business environment. We consider self-employment as a valid and sustainable route to economic participation and social inclusion, and thus strive to offer effective support in this area.

Empower will make effective use of local ethnic community networks, formal and informal sector networks (including faith organisations that are proving to be a rallying point for ethnic minority communities).

We offer a range of support services including Business counselling, Advice and consultancy, Mentoring and coaching provision. (For more details see ‘What Empower offers you’).

If you require further information on the EMPOWER project, and the services we provide explore the links in the menu, or email us at r.monnan@uel.ac.uk

Address: Empower
Knowledge Dock Business Centre
University of East London

University Way

London
E16 2RD

or Contact: Rugina Monnan
Email: r.monnan@uel.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8223 2289
Fax: 020 8223 2907