Pal-Think launches the training program “How to Start Your Own Business”, in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, in partnership with Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, launched a training program entitled, “How to Start Your Own Business” within the project “Reimagining the Reality of Entrepreneurship in the Lens of Palestinian Youth”. This project aims to shed light on small projects, the reality of startups, and entrepreneurship. Moreover, it promotes human development through education, research, and refining entrepreneurial and leadership skills among graduates and students of the Palestinian universities.

Sally Al Sammak-project manager at Pal-Think- opened the session by welcoming the attendees and stating: “Pal-Think is an independent Palestinian organization working in the field of community reconciliation, research, and strategic studies. Moreover, it employs all its resources to improve youth’s research, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills through diverse academic and applied trainings at the hands of the finest trainers.

Al Sammak also emphasized that the training will take a period of six training days to refine the entrepreneurial and leadership skills of the graduates of Palestinian universities all over the Gaza Strip.

The first day will start with an introduction to entrepreneurship and small businesses, the traits of a successful entrepreneur, steps for formulating ideas, skills for creative thinking, risk management, creating and developing a workspace, and building a team.

The second and third days will highlight business models and the ways to improve them. Meanwhile, the fourth day will cover market research, data collection strategies, competitor analysis, supply, and demand.

On the fifth day, the trainees will be introduced to the budget in the action plan, the financial plan, the fixed and variable costs, and the funding sources. As for the last day, it will address the skills of presenting entrepreneurial ideas and small businesses.

Al Sammak concluded by saying: “The inspiration for this project came from the large gap between university education and the labor market requirements. We implemented this training lately and it successfully helped some trainees in putting the ideas and foundations for their own businesses. Pal-Think always targets youth to improve the economy of the Palestinian society under the continuous increase in poverty and unemployment rates”.

In his role, trainee Abdallah Albaba, 23 years, who is a medical equipment engineering graduate, has stated why he participated in this training by saying: “The economic conditions are very tough so I want to begin my life with an entrepreneurial project, I want to transform my graduation project into an entrepreneurial project. My graduation project is about making a portable dental unit that serves disabled people and the elderly who are not able to take the stairs to the dental clinics on the upper floors”. He added: “The training topics are unique and there is almost no institution that provides such trainings, with this amount of quality like Pal-Think does”.

Moreover, trainee Raneen Farajallah, 22 years, a public relations and journalism graduate, noted that she established a startup lately with her colleagues but she lacks some skills in managing small businesses. She added: “I am here because I need to learn the skills of entrepreneurship and managing small businesses then pass them to my colleagues. I am currently involved in an emerging entrepreneurial project that aims at improving the content of content creators. As a result, once I saw the announcement, I quickly applied because this training will expand my thoughts and help me in growing my project”. She continued: “What also encouraged me to participate in this training is that a previous mentor who trained us on entrepreneurship is actually a graduate from the entrepreneurship training that Pal-Think implemented lately”.