The humanitarian organization Operation Mercy was founded by a man of Australian descent and works with marginalized groups in several countries around the world.
Operation Mercy has two projects – one titled “Hope and Health” aiming to help those with health problems, and another that builds women’s capacities in order to establish their own business. These are activities focusing on women who due to certain reasons have not had the opportunity to acquire education or working experience, so here they learn skills enabling them to open their own business.
This is a slightly different form of social entrepreneurship – where not the organization itself, but those who are trained perform an economic activity (hairdresser, make-up artist, sewing salon or preparation of cakes and sweets), so in a way they themselves establish a social enterprise. Antonije Nedanovska, manager of the project, says that about 50 women have been trained so far, mostly from the settlements as Chair, Gazi Baba, Sutka, Topaana…
This is a slightly different form of social entrepreneurship – where not the organization itself, but those who are trained perform an economic activity
“Some of the women we trained don’t even have primary education, some are single mothers, have sick husbands, or their husband died, some are poor or have gone through some trauma – they didn’t have the opportunity to learn, to acquire skills. But now they are acquiring crafting skills and they can open a business alone or together. Often they do become close throughout the training and decide to work together. We already have one that opened a hairdressing salon, one that opened a pastry shop, and we’re expecting the others to follow suit. We help them in the process – we network them, we give them moral support, and help them learn soft and life skills… Women are a very important part of society. I often say: a healthy woman, a healthy mother, a healthy wife – a healthy society”, underlines Antonie Nedanovska.
The next step is to focus on men as well, says Antonie, by helping them learn barber skills, for example. She also underlines their cooperation with institutions, primarily municipalities, local schools and the Employment Agency, where the candidates attend organized training sessions.
