Baku - Between 6-11 July 2020 IOM Azerbaijan held small business online training designed for selected youth from the Lankaran region. The training took place within the Public Action for Resilience (PAR) Activity, project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the training was adapted to online modality for six-half days basis. To enable all participants to attend, particularly for female ones who undertake household tasks, the training was scheduled for evening hours, between 4-8 PM. This training session was supposed to take place back in mid-March in Lankaran city.

The overall goal of this training is to contribute to increasing self-employment among rural youth. The training was attended by 19 local youth (9 females, 10 male) selected out of applicants, who submitted their applications through online form publicly available.

During the training, the participants strengthened their understanding of micro business activities and knowledge on running it in the country. They also got familiarized with business plans and gained a chance to submit their own plans. At the end of the training, the selected business ideas will be awarded further in-kind support. In this respect, PAR Activity offers tremendous opportunities for rural youth to realize their micro-business that would contribute to minimizing the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on youth and local communities.