Opportunity Day - Together we shape tomorrow's reality
On Thursday 31 October occurs Opportunity Day for the 4th time at Post Hotell in Gothenburg. The purpose is to create contact areas between business and foreign-born who want to enter the labor market. As Opportunity Day itself says: Facilitating the recruitment of people with a different ethnic background is not about charity. On the contrary. Companies that recruit people with a foreign background are more successful than those who do not. In addition, inclusion in the labor market benefits both individuals and society at large.
Opportunity Day represents everything that Ekan Management stands for: to challenge, to involve and to realize. It's all about shaping tomorrow's reality and being smart and acting proactively in a changing world. Practically speaking, Opportunity Day for Ekan is about being a positive force and contributing to a better life - for the foreign-born who are integrated into their new reality through employment, for the companies that have access to under-utilized skills, as well as for the society that transforms segregation into integration and thereby strengthening both supply quotas as well as pride and trust.
We know, and many with us, that change is a normal state. It is possible to avoid change from time to time, but it is an active act in itself to try to deviate from the outside world because the outside world is constantly changing. Resistance to change gradually builds up a debt of change that must be dealt with sooner or later. Therefore, change is a normal condition. Segregation is such an active act of resisting change. Segregation is a debt of change and it comes with a high price. Integration is the opposite, namely an active act of proactively managing change. Opportunity Day is an important arena for integration.
Background Opportunity Day:
One debate article 2015 in the Gothenburg Post moved in the pot on the Gothenburg city management. The article was signed by representatives of companies who, for various reasons, wanted to see better cooperation between the business community and the public sector in Gothenburg to counter segregation.
In response to the debate post, the Labor Market Adult Education in Gothenburg invited entrepreneurs to 2 breakfast seminars under the theme “Real and important jobs” to investigate whether there was a willingness to contribute to getting more foreign born into work. There was a fatigue regarding internships - a fatigue from both employers, job seekers and not least from the Labor Administration Adult Education's then managing director, Jan Elftorp. Internships play an important role, but the proportion who got a proper employment after completed internships was too few.
One of the entrepreneurs who attended these breakfasts was Helena Lindahl. She listened to appearances and subsequent discussions. She discovered an open window where there was no knowledge and awareness of everything that was available in public but that few entrepreneurs were aware of. At the same time, she also came to the conclusion that "opportunities" was a word that did not appear enough - Opportunities to drive change, development and innovation with diversity.
In 2016, Helena Lindahl invited her to the first Opportunity Day, where she received a great deal of help.