OSCE helps Ukrainian anti-trafficking NGOs refine ideas for social businesses

Representatives of four Ukrainian civil society organisations had a chance to refine their social business ideas, intended to support their anti-trafficking activities, at a three-day intensive training workshop in Kyiv that ended on Thursday, 27 November 2014.  The event organized by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine in co-operation with the country’s Ministry of Social Policy gathered civil society activists from Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsya and Zhytomyr regions.

This is part of a wider project effort aimed to pilot social business model as a tool to enhance sustainability for anti-trafficking NGOs. This model is to create enterprises to fund activities of civil society; at the same time such businesses can provide employment opportunities to develop new job skills for actual or potential victims of traffickers.   

In October/November the OSCE Project Co-ordinator conducted a contest among Ukrainian NGOs to select those ideas that would eventually be piloted. One of the selection criteria was previous experience of work in anti-trafficking domain. Four ideas were preliminary selected, among them establishing catering service for students, growing and selling spice herbs, sewing of women blouses and producing bijous to be sold online.  

During the workshop the participants were trained to turn their ideas into a feasible and professional business plan as a basis for starting up a successful enterprise. They will have two months to produce those plans and submit them for the final selection to obtain comprehensive financial support from the OSCE to have their enterprises launched and running.

“Doing business in Ukraine is a challenge, but rendering social services to victims of trafficking and vulnerable persons with no financial support - is a backbreaking work. The successful and operating social business will not only ensure the sustainable revenues to fund NGOs’ anti-trafficking activities but will also provide necessary job skills for victims and persons at-risk to improve their position on the labour market”,  said Ambassador Vaidotas Verba, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator.   

The workshop is conducted in the framework of the project “Prevention of Human Trafficking in Ukraine through the Economic Empowerment of Vulnerable Persons” implemented with the financial support from governments of Canada and Norway.