Supporting BAME Enteprenueurs

Dorkas and CPRES 203 are collaborating to provide mental well-being support for BAME entrepreneurs across Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

Anecdotally and systemically the BAME community has been underserved and supported as entrepreneurs and business start-ups. Compounded by the rather simmering pressure of unequal access to capital and mental well-being BAME entrepreneurs are prime candidates for contact with the NHS primary healthcare.

The data we have shown today is stark and makes for uncomfortable reading:

Business in the Community’s (BITC) 2019 Mental Health at Work: Time to Take Ownership report, shared some of the insights relating to BAME employees. The survey found that:

A. 47% of BAME employees have experienced poor mental health where work was a contributing factor in 2019.

B. 40% of BAME employees feel comfortable talking generally in the workplace about mental health issues as compared to 51% of employees.

C. 23% of BAME employees are less likely to be diagnosed with a mental health condition as compared to 31% of white employees.

D. “Only 0.24% of venture funding over the last 10 years going to (38) Black founders, 0.02% going to Black female founders. In addition, 43% of all seed funding went to teams with at least one team member who went to an elite university.”

  • The implications for mental well-being, social justice and social mobility are clear.
  • These data and reports are drawn from the structured workplace, not the entrepreneurial and start-up space. Typically, most corporate and established businesses offer medical assistance to their employees so as a BAME struggling to find employment or raise capital business, the only recourse to contact the NHS and/or be a community risk.
  • There’s a qualitative need to develop intervention measures to avoid contact with the NHS whilst minimising the risk to the community. We see mental health care as a building with a door and our objective is to minimise the number of those going through the door.
  • Therefore, CPRES 203 and Dorkas have combined to set up an intervention by way of one to one relationship counselling. Additionally, we will set up.

A. Research and data gathering assistance. You can’t improve what you can’t measure

B. Mental well-being awareness clinics for investors and investees community

C. One-to-one relationship counselling.

About CPRES 203

CPRES 203 is a Berkshire based Start-Up Accelerator, based in Thames Valley, the tech hub of the UK. CPRES 203 works with founders and businesses with revenue between $0 & $1m. CPRES 203 gets Founders/Entrepreneurs investor ready. The CPRES 203 program aims to provide training, mentoring and funding support. The CPRES 203 programme underpins diversity and supports underrepresented entrepreneurs. CPRES 203 is sector agnostic, however, our core is on tech-enabled businesses for underrepresented founders. Whether you’re in the UK or in Africa the CPRES 203 objective is to prepare you for the next phase of your business journey.