The refugee entrepreneurs starting again
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2022
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's been six months since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, the war in Ukraine has pushed the number of refugees across the world to more than 100 million. In this programme we hear from refugees about starting a new life - and a new business. Yuliia is from Ukraine but is now living in England. On the day she fled her home country, she threw some belongings in a bag, took her two children and drove across Europe. She was a wedding dress designer in Ukraine and is now hoping to restart her business in the UK. Razia works for Silai Wali - a social enterprise led by Afghan-women refugees in New Delhi. It up-cycles waste fabric to create handcrafted decorations. Plus, Bish Wadeep Mortia who set up the company, tells us more about how it works. And Waseem is from Jumpstart Refugee Talent in Canada - it is a refugee-led non-profit organisation whose sole purpose is to help people find work or start new businesses. Presented and produced by Jess Quayle (Photograph courtesy of Yuliia)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Food Chain is the podcast that explores the world's relationship with food |
| 0:04.9 | and what it takes to put food on our plates. |
| 0:09.1 | The Food Chain from the BBC World Service, available now. |
| 0:17.5 | Imagine you're living a normal life, but one day all that changes. |
| 0:21.6 | Suddenly, you and your family are displaced. |
| 0:24.6 | Sometimes I'm so, I'm so tired and want back at home, but every time I'm just telling myself that you can just be stronger. |
| 0:36.6 | The war in Ukraine has pushed the number of refugees across the world to more than 100 million, |
| 0:43.1 | all working to rebuild their lives and in some cases create new businesses. |
| 0:48.7 | This is Business Daily on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:52.4 | I'm Jess Quayle and in this programme we'll hear from the |
| 0:56.0 | refugee entrepreneurs starting from scratch. |
| 1:03.0 | This is a busy shopping centre in the heart of Nottingham, a city in England. |
| 1:10.0 | It's the school holidays and it's bustling with |
| 1:12.8 | shoppers going about their business. I've come to meet Yulia, a refugee from Ukraine. |
| 1:21.6 | I'm heading to a quieter area first, a place called the lace market. It's a perfect location because Yulia is a wedding |
| 1:30.0 | dress designer, hoping to restart her business in the UK. We'll talk more about that later, |
| 1:36.3 | but first I wanted to find out about her journey. Hello, my name is Yulia and I'm from Ukraine, of course. And I come to England three months ago. |
| 1:49.7 | You just left, really, quite certainly. It was like in film because I never know that I'm just, |
| 1:56.1 | for a few days, must take my clothes and girls and go anywhere. It's crazy because we change our life, |
| 2:02.7 | but I know that I can have a better life and I can not worry about the girls. I can work |
| 2:12.1 | and I can just start a new life. Yulia has two children. On the day they decided to leave their home, |
| 2:20.0 | they packed a few belongings, |
... |
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