AWE to address the gender imbalance in business start-ups

Project Name: Accelerating Women’s Enterprise
Acronym: AWE
Duration: 04/2018 - 03/2021 (36 months)
Total budget: € 4,050,548
ERDF: € 2,804,178

Our latest project will bring together organisations working in business creation to address the gender imbalance in business start-ups, where men are currently twice as likely to start a business compared to women.

The project called AWE (Accelerating Women’s Enterprise) will use expertise from both sides of the Channel to train and recruit over 160 specialist mentors. The mentors will then be paired with disadvantaged women where they will help coach and support them with business skills such as finance management, marketing and access to markets.

In addition to the mentor training, the project will also create other training content including an e-learning platform and business boot camps which will help reach and train a larger number of disadvantaged women.

At the end of the 3-year project, AWE will have trained over 700 women and helped create 130 jobs.

The project is led by Cambridgeshire based enterprise creation agency, YTKO and brings together 9 French and UK partners including Entreprendre au Feminin Bretagne, the University of Portsmouth, Outset Cic, Maison de l’emploi, du développement, de la formation et de l’insertion – Medefi, the University of Essex, Dartington Hall Trust, Maison de l'emploi et de la Formation de l’agglomération caennaise – Mefac and Club Normandie Pionnières.