Refugee Women Business Mentors: New Evidence for Women’s Empowerment

Claire P. Street, Poh Yen Ng and Haya Al-Dajani
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Claire P. Street: Christ Church Business School, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury CT1 1QU, UK
Poh Yen Ng: Christ Church Business School, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury CT1 1QU, UK
Haya Al-Dajani: Prince Mohammed Bin Salman College, King Abdullah Economic City 23964-2522, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 15, 1-21

Abstract: With over 27.1 million refugees displaced globally across national borders as a result of protracted crises, conflict, and danger, resettlement in host nations remains challenging. One approach for empowering refugee women in their host nations is to enhance their economic participation through entrepreneurship. We contribute to the growing research on refugee women’s entrepreneurship by focusing on refugee women entrepreneurs as mentors to other refugee women and exploring the impact of mentoring upon the empowerment of refugee women business mentors. The aim of the study is to explore the impact of being a mentor on the empowerment of refugee women entrepreneurs settled in the United Kingdom. As such, the research question asks to what extent does being a mentor influence the empowerment of refugee women entrepreneurs. The qualitative study involved six refugee women business mentors who co-designed and led an entrepreneurship training programme for refugee women in the United Kingdom and charted their empowerment journeys through four potential empowerment junctures within the mentoring process. First, the refugee woman as a mentee, then as a member of a mentoring group, thirdly as a facilitator in the mentoring process, and finally as a reflective agent. Our contribution to the women’s entrepreneurship discipline lies in our finding that refugee women’s engagement as mentors enhanced their empowerment in ways that their entrepreneurship alone cannot.

Keywords: refugee women; empowerment; mentoring; entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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