A series of rural startups from Belarus will get the chance to put their ideas into action with EU support, after being selected at the fourth Startup Weekend in Kamarova earlier this month.
At the event, business ideas were presented by residents of Miadziel, Astraviec, Smarhoń and Pastavy districts, who had been trained at the School of Rural Business in Kamarova from January to April 2018. A jury of representatives of local authorities, businessmen, Belarusian and foreign public organisations determined which initiatives will receive financial support of between €2,000 and €10,000 from an EU-funded rural development project.
Initiatives selected for funding range from a family enterprise making educational wooden toys to a husband and wife raising cattle, from a roadside café making pancakes to an orthopaedic shoe repair workshop
The next Startup Weekend will be held in July and business people from the four districts are again invited to present their business plans, even if they did not attend the School of Rural Business in Kamarova.
The School of Rural Business in Kamarova is part of the EU-funded project for ‘Development of Rural Localities in the Republic of Belarus: Boosting Rural Entrepreneurship in Belarus and Launching a Rural Business Incubator in Kamarova’.
As part of its EU4Business initiative, the EU also supports regional development in Belarus through the ‘Local Economic Development in Belarus’ project, which supports participatory local development and entrepreneurship in Belarus, with the aim of enhancing local growth and competitiveness, while at the same time addressing social vulnerabilities.