[ad_1]
St. Louis International Institute will open an Afghan Community Center in South St. Louis and a national Afghan Chamber of Commerce in February to help Afghans maintain their identity and learn entrepreneurship skills.
Afghans can take Persian and English classes, attend speech events and after-school programs and workshops to help them grow while living in the region. The Chamber will offer Afghan business training and financial literacy classes to help promote entrepreneurship.
The new business programs and classes could help Afghans build communities and businesses in St. Louis, said Moji Sidiqi, the Institute’s Afghan Community Support Program Manager.
“The Chamber of Commerce plans to build opportunities for financial growth,” Sidiqi said. “It will take Afghanistan’s economic state trajectory to another level.”
The new community center is located in the old Hispanic Chamber of Commerce building in Metropolitan St. Louis on South Grand Avenue near Gravois Park. The Chamber of Commerce will operate from within the Center.
Over the past year, the Institute has helped resettle more than 700 Afghans who feared for their lives and fled Afghanistan as the Taliban took control of their country.
Some Afghans who come to St. Louis have entrepreneurial backgrounds and want to start businesses in their new homes, said Arrey Obenson, CEO and president of the institute.
“They came here as refugees… [and] I am now a taxpayer. They are employees now,” says Obenson. “They are often entrepreneurs now, many of them doing DoorDash and Uber.
Obenson hopes the community center and chamber of commerce will encourage other Afghans to move to St. Louis and use the resources to contribute to the local economy.
So far, 131 Afghans have moved to the region from other cities across the country.
“Hopefully, many of them will get support from the resources developed by the Afghan Chamber of Commerce to set up their businesses and ultimately lead to economic growth,” Obenson said.
The Chamber also provides women with entrepreneurship and skills training courses, such as sewing and cooking classes to encourage Afghan women to start clothing companies and restaurants.
Being a female entrepreneur is generally discouraged in Afghan culture. Siddiqui said she hopes the program will inspire Afghan women to develop business acumen.
“We take people’s demographics and place them in their own spaces where they can connect with their identities, but also thrive in their new home, the new city,” she said. Told.
[ad_2]
Source link
