by Naomi Miller
Yozmot Atid (Future Initiatives or Future (female) Entrepreneurs) is a Detroit Federation-supported organization in Israel that was founded with the goal of reducing socioeconomic inequalities by empowering women to create and develop their own independent and small businesses. Established in 2015, they pride themselves on helping develop over 3000 small businesses.
Yozmot Atid enables women of all backgrounds – Jewish, Arab, secular, ultra-Orthodox, immigrants, Bedouin and Druze, predominantly from Israel’s socioeconomic periphery, to create a new economic reality through a holistic and multi-leveled program. The women receive training and support from facilitators as well as personalized mentorship, mostly by volunteers, to help them create a business plan. The organization has recently entered the “shared society” space with the newly launched “East and West” initiative that aims to train one thousand Jewish and Arab women from East and West Jerusalem, who will learn and work together to develop joint business interests.
Yozmot Atid is going global with their first US pilot being launched in Michigan with Detroit Means Business (DMB), a coalition of public, private and philanthropic partners addressing and assisting the needs of Detroit’s small businesses. The DMB staff are being trained by Yozmot Atid to develop and adapt the successful Israeli model in order to become a Detroit reality. The potential for this partnership was conceived in November 2019 when Governor Whitmer and her staff were hosted in Israel by the JFMD and were introduced to the Yozmot Atid program and their recipients.
To conclude, the recipient’s stories are the greatest testimony to the success of the organization. Here is Anat’s story, founder of “Imale” personal coaching for Expecting Single Mothers
“How did it all start? By training, I am a personal coach in the Satya method with a specialization in fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth. From my personal journey and the choice I made to be a single mother, it was clear to me that this was my gift: To accompany, support and advise women who are either undecided or are already on the way to single motherhood and to raise awareness about fertility preservation methods (freezing eggs or embryos). To provide knowledge, guidance, and emotional support—exactly what I was missing in my own journey. For me, the turning point was when I realized that even though my main source of income was from photography, my heart was with the women I was accompanying through this other realm [of activity I was engaged in] … After my first open event, I launched my first group and am now regularly running childbirth preparation courses for expecting single mothers—a program I haven’t seen anywhere else.
When the business was still in its infancy in May 2019, I saw Yozmot Atid’s ads on Facebook. I came for an interview, got accepted, joined a course, got a great mentor and the rest is history.
Today my business is my main source of income. I have already closed three childbirth preparation courses, and in a few weeks, I will be beginning my fourth. With Yozmot Atid’s help I was able to create an online version for women already from the beginning [of Covid], and thanks to Zoom I have been able to help women from all over the country and from abroad, even though I live in the periphery. I am extremely proud to be able to say that today my passion is also my livelihood.”