AMMAN — International humanitarian organisation Mercy Corps on Tuesday organised a roundtable discussion with Minister of Youth Fares Braizat and various start-ups.

 

The start-ups fall under Mercy Corp’s Generation Impact, a “social impact incubator that includes both physical space and a platform for start-ups and small- and medium-sized enterprises to build a support network”, according to the organisation’s website.

 

Generation Impact is part of Mercy Corps’ Youth Impact Lab, which “identifies and tests creative, technology-enabled solutions to tackle global youth unemployment”, the website said.

 

The roundtable was the first official meeting between the Ministry of Youth and Youth Impact Labs. 

 

Among the start-ups present at the meeting were Sharqi Shop, a start-up established by a Syrian refugee for supporting artisans’ access to international markets, Bilforon, a mobile app connecting home cooks with clients and customers around Jordan, and Carers, a start-up connecting nurses and babysitters with households, according to the organisation’s website.

 

“The Minister of Youth meets these start-ups to understand exactly what their impacts are on youth employment and youth support,” said Khaleel Najjar, senior programme manager for Youth Impact Labs. 

 

“Because this is a youth employment programme, this is a much-needed meeting,” Najjar stressed.

 

“The government is working on solving the challenges that youth and women are facing in regards to employment,” Braizat said in the meeting, adding that some organisations face issues of over-employment, a phenomenon that has prompted the government to turn its focus to entrepreneurship. 

 

“We co-established [Generation Impact] with iPARK in order to host socially spirited enterprises,” Najjar said.

 

“Our focus at the beginning was on employment, so all of these companies are really good at employing a high number of youth,” Najjar noted, adding: “Some of the companies already graduated and moved and the incubator started hosting new companies.”