Positions Available: 3 (individually or as a team)

Introduction

In Canada, the rise of women’s entrepreneurship has been especially dramatic, with activity rates for both startups and established business ranking among some of the highest in the world. While immigrant women who work for themselves may typically conjure up images of nannies and housekeepers, the truth is their businesses are all across the board in areas such as the food industry, manufacturing, engineering, and legal services.

The Women’s Economic Council is a gathering of women-centered community economic development organizations and practitioners. We are a national charitable organization helping Canadian women, especially marginalized women and those at risk of poverty, achieve their economic goals. We work with community organizations, helping to connect, nurture, and support. In 2019 the Women’s economic council launched a project called Her Own Boss!

What is Her Own Boss!

Her Own Boss explores the challenges in self-employment for visible minority immigrant women in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Ontario.

Project objective:

HOB is currently active in various areas; We have weekly interactive information sessions on basis of the participants’ demand. Our previously conducted sessions were on Marketing strategies, writing business plan, getting permits for home-based businesses, legal advice by the city of St. John’s, Financing a business, Credit score and etc.

In this project apart from helping newcomer women explore the business options and navigate through the legal system, we try to figure out what barriers and reasons these women have in starting their business. This is what this project is aimed at discovering.

Methodology:

Community-based action research;

Methods:

Online interviews

Focus groups

Sample size:

30 participants need to be interviewed, and the responses need to be analyzed.

10 service providers need to be interviewed.

The interview design should consider:

• Audience
• Appropriate length
• Question order
• Bias considerations
• Representative sample size
• Value of data

The results of this research and will be used by the Women's Economic Council to provide suggestions on empowerment of visible minority immigrant women to start their business or to be actively engaged in the Canadian job market.

Weekly meetings with the supervisor, and the research team.