Event Report: New Migrants Focus Group in Northampton

Focus Group for Eastern European Migrants in Northampton

Last Thursday, April 23rd 2009, a focus group event, co-sponsored by CREME, New Communities in Social Enterprise (NCISE) and Business Link, was held at Chata Polish Restaurant in Northampton. The 14 invitees represented established Polish businesses, prospective Polish businesses, NCISE and other Eastern European community organisations.

This focus group was specifically aimed at Eastern European businesses and community organisations within Northamptonshire.

After brief introductions, where the sponsors of the event introduced themselves to the participants and provided an overview of their activities, we went through several questions with the attendees covering people’s backgrounds, their businesses and experiences of business support. There were several immediate key findings:-

• A large majority of people are either planning on settling down in the UK or staying at least for a few more years
• Business activities focused on food related businesses, websites, arts and crafts, construction and import/export
• People started a business in order to gain more opportunities and to maximise their potential
• Main barriers people face are language barriers and not knowing where to access information
• Most participants have little help from family, business support organisation or religious organisations
• Credit crisis doesn’t have a big impact because Polish people are used to tough conditions
• People mostly use the internet to find business related information
• Most people lack information on legal aspects of running a business and where they can find sources of finance

Most of the attendees didn’t know much about Polish social enterprises. The event concluded with a question and answer session where attendees could pose their questions to Business Link and NCISE. Several people showed interest in making appointments to meet with a Business Link advisor at a later date and with NCISE, and declared a big interest in being involved with CREME’s future activities.

- Alex Kiselinchev-