Open Embassy

OpenEmbassy – Behind the Social Enterprise

Renee Frissen is the Founder of OpenEmbassy and in her video shares the story that has led her to founding the social enterprise in the Netherlands for incoming asylum-seekers. Renee also explains what surprised and moved her to found OpenEmbassy and why she thinks it is important to continue in civil society work for integrating asylum-seekers in the Netherlands. If you are interested in setting up a social enterprise in your own surroundings, Renee also provides you several questions to first think of.

The story and motivations behind starting Open Embassy

• The specific problem the project responded to
• Untapped potential and human resources
• Context of quickly constructed emergency centers
• A lack of research or discourse on effective means of refugee integration

The goals and the features of the platform

• Scalability of knowledge and resources
• 24/7 open help desk
• Workshops, focus groups, trainings and shareable infographics
• Long-term learning about real needs and measurable results

The potential for others to make an impact through reflection and social entrepreneurship

• Using resources and models from diverse domains
• Breaking big goals into bite-sized tasks
• Reflective questions on what you could do and the tools that could be used to tackle problems you’ve encountered.