Fanny Belhomme (EDHEC 2018) nous présente Black Sheep !

1. Pouvez-vous nous expliquer en quelques mots comment est né votre projet ? (Equipe, origine et originalité du projet) ?

In 2015, 65.3 million individuals were forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of conflict, generalised violence, or human rights violations. Migratory flux is one of the main stakes of the 21st century. Today with the current European refugee crisis, the whole society is directly confronted with this phenomenon. Europe is struggling to cope with this specific immigration wave, partly coming from Syria and its neighbours, at great speed and with huge volumes. Integration of these people (refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and more globally” forced migrants”) into our society has become a major challenge. Though many a citizens’ initiative have been created to improve the situation and make integration easier, the quality of hospitality in occidental societies has often been criticized. We are two students who plan to go and meet these men and women who mobilise themselves every day for migrants’ integration over the world. The crisis we witness today in Europe and especially in France pushed us to study forced population displacement whatever the cause is (political, economic, or climatic) and solutions for their integration. Our project Black Sheep aims to map French innovative projects to identify their current problems and, as a second step, meeting and comparing projects for migrants’ integration abroad with different problematics depending on the country we are going to (natural disaster, rural exodus, political exile, etc.). And, finally to design a structure to replicate these models and ideas and adapt them to the French situation regionally.

2. Quel premier bilan tirez-vous de cette aventure d’entrepreneuse sociale ?

Being – or learning to be - a social entrepreneur is amazing! I would never have believed than I could do it… At the very beginning of the project, I was just realizing that there was an issue in France concerning migrants’ integration to our society, but I could never have imagined than a few weeks later, I’d decide to take one year “off” to work full time on Black Sheep and go one year in Asia to learn from best practices there about forced displacements’ solutions. These weeks of preparation were very enriching and rewarding. I look forward to going on and learning so many things in Asia.

3. Avez-vous pu profiter à un moment ou un autre du réseau des diplômés de l’EDHEC ?

At this time of our three-steps project, we could benefit from network of EDHEC graduates for getting in touch with people living in Asian countries in which we intend to go during our one-year travel.

4. Pour votre projet, quelles sont les prochaines étapes ?

Next steps… We’ve started with a look at the latest developments in France and then met French associations and migrants who have received help, so as to eventually draft a participative mapping of these initiatives. On that basis, we will begin a one-year-long initiatory trip from October 2016 across Asia – a continent which already had to stem forced migration flux from various origins – to discover new kinds of solutions and entrepreneurial projects for migrant’s integration. We are certain that part of these initiatives and new business models are duplicable even though each solution is highly contextual. We want to see if that is relevant, and if so, do it back in France.

5. Avez-vous des attentes vis à vis de la communauté des diplômés de l'EDHEC ? (Levée de fonds, recherche de collaborateurs, de partenaires, de conseils, etc)

We have a lot of expectations! First of all, we are fond of good advice concerning countries we’ll visit (Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia and Russia) and more globally about Immigration stakes and issues. We’ve also launched a crowdfunding campaign which will end in a few days and I am sure that a lot of EDHEC Alumni could be interested in helping us. In one year, when we come back, we intend to rely on this network to find people from many fields to launch our “Initiatives Studio” to help ourselves migrants’ integration in France.

6. Davantage d’informations : votre site web, votre contact, les liens vers vos réseaux sociaux...

You can follow and support BLACK SHEEP here:

>> Our website: http://blacksheephello.wixsite.com/blacksheep

>> Our crowdfunding campaign: https://fr.ulule.com/black_sheep/

>> Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BaahBlackSheep/

>> Our video of presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cbeBqhNZAA