WHAT'S NEXT?

Mustafa Dawood

Throughout the past four years, The Station has collected numerous lessons learned from its vast experience with different types of programs, from capacity building to MSMEs support and start-up incubation, to building communities, and supporting creatives and artists. This has given The Station a broader insight on the challenges facing Iraq in the context of economic development and public policies, as well as a better understanding of the needs of Iraqi youth.

Working with a large number of MSMEs across the country, The Station has identified the key differences that make a business a start-up, which is an MSME with a possibility to grow and scale exponentially in a short time and has a potentially large market size, this has enabled The Station to design tailor-made programs for start-ups and for regular MSMEs, the first focusing on fast-base growth, and the second focuses more on sustainability and linear growth.

Iraq has a major legislation challenges in all sectors, due to the constant change in government since the 50s, this has not only resulted in public policies that do not align with the best interest of civic development, but also conflict with other policies, making it very difficult for business, media, civic actors, and even government to operate. The Station has understood the importance of working on policy reform for private sector growth and youth development.

THE FIRST PILLAR

is career readiness, based on the fact that the vast majority of youth are not entrepreneurs, and do not have the financial capabilities to start their own businesses, adding to it the inefficient higher education that does not prepare students for the job market, this has made The Station put job readiness as its top priorities through theMetro project, which focuses on college students to raise their awareness and sensitize them to the job market and start-up culture, through career-building training, tours in companies, and awareness events, while theAcademy program focuses on the graduates, delivering high quality, sector-specific, and skill-based training sessions, workshop, and internships equipping young graduates with specific skills needed in the job market.

THE SECOND PILLAR

is business development, and it consists of three separate programs, theIncubator is a program designed for startups, covering their journey from the idea stage to the growth stage, yet, The Station does not plan to implement an accelerator anytime soon to focus more on youth, that is why The Station will refer the growth stage start-ups to international and local partners like Takween, The Founder Institute, GEN, and Start-ups Without Borders to accommodate The Station’s start-ups toward expansion. Furthermore, theEntreprise is a program comes with different names, like Isnad or Absher, it focuses on a wider spectrum of MSMEs, all the business who do not have the start-ups traitstreats, The Station will help them in sustaining their businesses, and with their linearleaner growth, it also focuses on helping them in access to finance. Moreover, there is the Coworking Space, which is a space in The Station for MSMEs (focusing on start-ups) as well as freelancers, and it is a program dedicated to the MSMEs, that includes incubation, mentorship, coaching sessions, and networking.

THE THIRD PILLAR

is the creativeSpace, which the similar to the Coworking Space in being a space in The Station, and a program dedicated to creatives and artists a historical community in Iraq that The Station is working to maintain and rebuild, through empowering young artists to build their skills, network locally and internationally, showcase their art, and further develop their skills into a career. The creativeSpace is very vibrant with its art, community as well as activities, from workshops, exhibitions, full programs, initiatives, and clubs the creativeSpace envision itself to be the center of the Iraqi creative industries in Iraq.

THE FOURTH PILLAR

The fourth pillar is Civic Engagement through the Himma program, through it, The Station plans to revitalize the Iraqi civic society’s role in addressing the challenges, shaping government policies, and leading social movement, by working with CSOs across the country, building their capacity, helping them with sustainability, and getting them to work together for a greater impact, Himma will also act as a fundraiser for Iraqi CSOs, providing them with grants to implement different projects within a unified vision. This program will establish a link between Iraqi CSOs, the Iraqi government, and the international community, retaining the role of Iraq in the civic society of the MENA region.

The four pillars mentioned above, and the countrywide reach, is putting The Station as one of the leading Iraqi non-profit organizations, playing an important role in building the future of Iraq, which put the responsibility on The Station to build a sustainable locally funded nonprofit ecosystem in Iraq, shifting the focus away from international funding for sustainability, this won’t be easy, and The Station is taking the first step by creating a model for itself, making alliances with Iraqi business groups, building connections with local individual donors, and partnering with big local corporates to secure funding.

This process will not be free of challenges, The Station needs to go through a lot of trial and error to design a successful local fundraising model, but once it is achieved, it will create a new equation in Iraq, building a very effective and sustainable civic society in Iraq to correct, support, and monitor the government, illustrating a success story for the whole MENA region. To achieve this goal, The Station will need collaboration and support, if you want to support The Station, or to be part of this vision, contact us at: Info@the-station.iq