European Social Fund in England

Entrepreneurs Celebrate Success

Two ESF projects that encourage entrepreneurship in the East Midlands have celebrated success by hosting events to say thank you to ESF, Government Office for the East Midlands and participants.

Improving New Business

The East Midlands Incubation Network (EMIN) project based at Leicester’s De Montfort University has used ESF to help newly self employed people and those considering self employment. Their business assessment tool identifies participants business skills and development needs and has been used by business support providers to offer evidenced and needed services.

The toolkit has proved popular across businesses based at incubation units and some participants have also benefited from follow up mentoring. Those benefiting have exceeded targets and many have reported improved business performance. The businesses assisted include Max Conflict in Derby that offers self defence courses for the business community, and Clearwater Solutions from Northampton, which helps businesses extract market intelligence from databases.

Kerry James of Clearwater Solutions (left) receives an achievement certificate (awarded

by the project sponsors) from Jayne Muir, Head of GO East Midlands ESF Team

Languages for Entrepreneurs

Since 2002 the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce has provided ESF supported language training to help businesses expand into new international markets. Participants develop skills to communicate directly with either suppliers or product enquirers, and develop a knowledge and understanding of other cultures so they can fully benefit from business visits and attendance at trade fairs. Since June 2005 the initiative has attracted over 80 participants from over 50 SMEs.

The project offered places on German, Spanish, French and Italian on certificated courses spread over a 6 weeks period or through one day taster sessions. Amongst those benefiting is John Kirk from Linktel based in Branston in Lincoln, who through negotiating with Spanish firms has enabled UK customers to benefit from special rate phone numbers when promoting holiday, commercial and residential properties.

For more information contact Rob Willis
ESF Team
Government Office East Midlands
Telephone: 0115 971 2618
Email: Rob.willis@goem.gsi.gov.uk