Interview with Radwan Wetti, Business Experience Program Manager

The SHABAB Project is an initiative of the Syria Trust for Development that aims to encourage entrepreneurship, knowledge and awareness of the business world among young people in Syria.

To learn more about the program, MEYI interviewed Radwan Wetti, Business Experience Program Manager at the SHABAB Project about his work. Note: Radwan was interviewed on a mobile phone. Due to the poor sound quality, we have included a transcript of his remarks. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Audio Excerpts:

1. The Environment in Syria is Changing (click to listen)

 “The environment in Syria is changing regardless of whether the pace is fast enough or not. With the new educational opportunities and new job opportunities, especially in the private sector of course, some new private programs and the new NGO’s that are working in favor of youth support. All these changes are in favor of youth inclusion, and successful, smooth transitions from childhood to adulthood, from school to work. Nevertheless, certain changes will strengthen our impact, maybe from changes in national curricula, believing more in youth in terms of credit, maybe facing the housing problem that faces the youth, which is one of the most important concerns for a young person in Syria.”

2. Defining Entrepreneurship (click to listen)

“Entrepreneurship in my point of view is finding a need in the market and discovering new ways of combining resources in a manner that can bring the entrepreneur income. I see it this way, it is not about repeating what your father did or copying what other people do: unfortunately some do that. For me, I think it is very important to encourage entrepreneurship in Syria since it is very rich with [inaudible] among its creative and enthusiastic youth. It would be such a waste of time and resources not to make youth of such potential – that is, of course, if the Syrian youth are willing – to enter the world’s markets and face the new challenges.”

3. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Syria (click to listen)

"For a Syrian company, corporate social responsibility would be aligning the company’s activities with the social, economic, and environmental expectations of the stakeholders, of course in each case they are the majority (inaudible) of youth. In my experience in the youth support sector, corporate and private sector companies always understood their role as in the form of financial sponsorship or support for the different youth-oriented activities. Only lately the private sector realized that financial aid or support is not the only way. Other ways would be through providing volunteer mentoring for young entrepreneurs or opening the doors for interns and young visitors, as they do in our program, the Business Experience program, to understand the different industries better so they can make an informed decision when it comes to choosing their future careers, for example." 

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