Passion, determination, actions and networking are the four main ingredients for business success shared by seven young, inspiring entrepreneurs before more than 100 young Indonesians and refugee youth at the business gathering titled “Meeting with Local Entrepreneurs”. Held in the mid of October in Jakarta, the business gathering was conducted by the ILO in collaboration the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Agency (UNHCR), Atma Jaya Catholic University and Dompet Dhuafa.

“Start with what you like. Your business should start from your passion,” said Dian Elvira Rosa, the founder and owner of Kemala Home Living. While Anthony Liu, the founder of Ontenta.com, added determination and networking as another important ingredients. “I have built my businesses with determination, actions and networking,” said Anthony, sharing his expertise in establishing start-up businesses.

This business gathering was a follow-up to the joint collaboration between the ILO and UNHCR signed on 4 September with Atma Jaya Catholic University and Dompet Dhuafa as the implementing partners. The joint collaboration, “Ready for Business Training Programme” is a 6-month business training programme targeted for selected 200 participants aged 17-30 years old from September 2018 to February 2019. The participants consist of 100 Indonesian youth and 100 refugee youth.

The business gathering was the first gathering conducted to further sharpen participants’ business spirits and characters. “It is planned to have a series of meetings with entrepreneurs as ways to continuously motivate and inspire the participants,” said Tendy Gunawan, the ILO’s programme officer.

The business gathering was also conducted as the preparation for the implementation of the second module of Ready for Business Training on developing business idea. By providing opportunities for participants to directly interact and share their business ideas with the real young entrepreneurs, the participants were expected to be able to widen their knowledge on how to realize their business ideas.

In addition to Dian and Anthony, other participating entrepreneurs were from audio-visual and multimedia business (@wowadit), clothing business (@paramabatik), electrical panel, coffee shop business (@kopiduls) and home appliance business. These entrepreneurs shared their business journeys, including their strategies on how to run online business, market the products, maintain the product quality, expand the business and so forth.

During the interactive session, the participants were allowed to choose three out of five participating businesses above of their strong interests. The participants were given 20 minute each to explore, connect and learn from the entrepreneurs they had selected.

Ali Gazar, a young refugee from Iraq who has lived in Indonesia for two years, was enthusiast in exploring video-making business and clothing business. “I am keen to learn from the successful local entrepreneurs. One of my passions is taking photos and I am excited joining the multimedia session,” he said.

“I am delighted meeting all the participants. They have shown a strong interest in multimedia and audio-visual business. But, I emphasized to all participants attending my session that they need to start realizing their business ideas. Most youth spend too much time dreaming their business ideas; yet never realize them,” said Raditya Adi Nugraha, one of the entrepreneurs involved in the gathering.