Refugee entrepreneurs are ready to thrive
Marjorie Tenchavez tells us how Welcome Merchant is bridging gaps and empowering refugee-powered businesses.
Welcome Merchant is a social enterprise with a mission to elevate and enhance refugee-powered businesses and social enterprises in Australia. They currently promote more than 60 refugee entrepreneurs through their online directory and social media channels.
Marjorie Tenchavez is a Filipina-Australian social justice advocate and the founder of Welcome Merchant. In December 2020, after seeing the online success of Instagram accounts like ‘Buy from the Bush’, Marjorie saw an opportunity. “Having worked in the refugee sector since 2011, I knew that there was a gap in the market for a consolidated platform of refugee-powered businesses in Australia.” She started an account on Instagram that soon became a community and then a social enterprise. They recently launched a new event series, hosting dining experiences and pop-up dinners with refugee-powered food businesses. The night before our interview, Marjorie successfully held her fourth event so far, in Wollongong, with an Ethiopian food business.
Refugees and newly arrived migrants face numerous barriers to starting their own business. These challenges can include overcoming language barriers, bridging skills gaps, securing funds to cover their start-up costs or expanding beyond their immediate networks. Overall, Marjorie believes the biggest hurdle is financial, “[Refugees] generally won't have enough savings to start a business and will be dependent on bank loans. They may be limited in accessing bank loans too if they don't have any credit history in their new country. Additionally, around 60-70% of the businesses we've featured on Welcome Merchant don't have a website, as it's too costly for them to maintain one.” The support that Welcome Merchant provides is practical and focused on bridging some of the gaps. They check in with businesses to remind them to get the right insurance, provide support in navigating technical issues, like taxes or tenant’s rights, and create professional development opportunities to build skills in areas like social media marketing.
When asked about systemic changes required to empower entrepreneurs, Marjorie says that in her experience, refugee support networks tend to focus on major cities. There aren’t many support systems in place for refugees living in regional areas and that’s definitely something that needs to change. Refugees, and migrants in general, tend to be very entrepreneurial. Their lack of local work experience and difficulty in having their experience and education recognised in Australia makes navigating the job market challenging. Marjorie believes there should be funding available not just for organisations that support refugees, but direct support in funds, through grants for example, for refugees starting their own businesses.
“We should be inspired by their resilience, resourcefulness and determination to succeed.”
Speaking of challenges for entrepreneurs, we talk about her own experience in starting Welcome Merchant. At the moment, Marjorie’s key issues are time and money. She currently works a full-time job which helps fund Welcome Merchant. Because of her work commitments, she finds it challenging to grow the organisation as she would like to. Money is also a challenge; she doesn’t charge businesses to be listed or for any of the support she provides. Her purpose is to provide a platform and amplify the work refugee-powered businesses are doing. Grants are difficult to find because Welcome Merchant isn’t set up as a not-for-profit and they don’t intend to change that. While it could help them access more grants, it’s also a competitive space and there are legal and financial costs to consider – in other words, more time and money.
Over the next 12 months, Welcome Merchant will be working on increasing its reach by focusing on its event delivery and extending its networks throughout regional NSW. They intend to expand their cooking classes and have now added a new range of workshops. After the success of their pop-up dinner events, they will continue hosting their Curated Dining Experiences. “We want to continue bringing Curated Dining Experiences, which includes cooking classes and Social Suppers, around Sydney and surrounds. We also hope to run more artist-led workshops with the other refugee entrepreneurs we've featured.” The uncertainty of the pandemic has brought a new set of challenges, but regardless, Welcome Merchant will continue to forge on to create much-needed support networks for refugee entrepreneurs. “I want to change the negative conversations about refugees and people seeking asylum and show the public that they are not a burden and that we should be inspired by their resilience, resourcefulness and determination to succeed.” 🔥
Find out more about Welcome Merchant here.
