Int (Ibda Negozju Tiegħek, Malta) - Set up your own business

Malta's INT ('Ibda Negozju Tiegħek' / 'Start Your Own Business') scheme is run by the national employment service (Employment and Training Corporation, ETC, now Jobsplus) as part of its effort to promote an enterprise culture. It is open to unemployed persons of all ages, not exclusively women.

To support unemployed people, including women, in starting and sustaining their own business through training, advice, mentoring, financial grants, and a childcare-cost incentive aimed at increasing women's participation.

A three-phase, 42-week scheme: an 18-week training programme (phases 1-2) covering business set-up and management, followed by a 24-week phase in which participants launch their business with continued mentoring support. To encourage participation, especially by women, ETC reimbursed childcare costs at €1.30 per hour per child, raised to €1.50 per hour from January 2010.

Between January 2010 and December 2012, 74 people applied to the scheme, of whom 29 (about 39%) were women.

The scheme illustrates how a general enterprise-support programme can attract meaningful female participation when combined with a targeted incentive such as childcare reimbursement; the source does not report outcome data on business survival, income or employment after the scheme.