Discover the achievements of the 2014-2020 NPA projects

Seven years of cooperation between people, communities, and organisations across thousands of kilometres made a difference in the Northern Periphery and Arctic regions.

Browse the NPA map of results to discover our stories of cooperation. Pick a dot from the map and scroll down to read  about people who have met similar minded colleagues and together found solutions for their shared challenges.

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Empowering women entrepreneurs in rural areas

More confidence, skills, understanding, and connections for female led companies

Women are less likely to be entrepreneurs. The W-POWER project tried to reverse these statistics by working with women entrepreneurs in sparsely populated areas across Northern and Arctic communities, encouraging them to set up, develop and grow their businesses. As the survey showed, in Eastern Finland, the greatest challenge in starting and running a female led business had been doing the financial calculations, marketing, lack of network opportunities and time. Similar answers appeared among respondents from Finnish Lapland, who also struggled with finding customers and balancing between family and business. To tackle these and other challenges, the project prepared business support tutorials, launched Peer-to-peer mentoring programme, the Business Idea Competition and piloted the Gender sensitive coaching concept. Women that joined the project activities shared that the project has changed their business lives, boosted their confidence or helped them find new partners or business networks. Together, they all contributed to change in how women entrepreneurs are perceived by society.

Photo credit: W-POWER project & arcticcherry.fi

 

Kate Suopajärvi

Arctic Cherry Designs

I was in the P2P program with a partner also from fashion designs and had interesting talks with her. I participated twice to the Pitching competition. I didn't win but got a lot of experience and valuable feedback from experts. I have participated in almost all project activities and got inspiration from other entrepreneurs. I have my website done and developed my social media. I got excited about W-Power because of the name: Women really have power, and project helped us to own this power.