We Started 2024 with a clear goal: Putting the Well-Being of Impact Entrepreneurs at the top of our priorities.
The TARGET program, a pilot initiative from Casa do Impacto in partnership with the Fidelidade Group, was our proposal to our Community.
Through various activities like Workshops, Founder Circles, Individual and Team Coaching, Yoga, and experimental dynamics with professionals in the field, we got to know the struggles, challenges, and goals of our Community better. We understood their reality and the logical extension and generalization of it to the entire Ecosystem. A complex and dynamic Ecosystem that shares a common goal: to make the world a better place, even if it means carrying the enormous weight of responsibility on their shoulders.
Working to solve Environmental and Social issues, problems that affect other people and often vulnerable groups, carries a burden that can become difficult to manage. Impact has a strong emotional dimension that serves as motivation and gives purpose to Entrepreneurs and projects associated with the Social Economy. It is also, however, one of the factors that makes it so sensitive and prone to many challenges in the field of Well-Being and Mental Health.
We do not approach this subject lightly, and while it is evident that generalizations are not the answer to everything and there is a need to go into detail and customize the methodologies and tools used to each individual’s needs, numbers are always data we can rely on. They serve as objective references and concrete foundations for our work. It seems pertinent, therefore, to go back to the beginning and revisit the factors that served as a cornerstone for TARGET and found their reflection in the voice of the Entrepreneurs in our Hub.
These data came to us through a Mental Health diagnostic questionnaire constructed in partnership with the Portuguese Catholic University (Catholic Research Center for Psychological, Family, and Social Well-Being, CRC-W/UCP). According to the findings, 74% recognize that work influences their mental health, and 61% believe there has been a significant deterioration in their physical health since they became Impact Entrepreneurs. The signs of somatization in the context of Entrepreneurship are very significant, with 30% of people showing high or very high levels of somatization. In terms of somatology, 20% have clinically significant levels of insomnia, 7.7% have moderate or severe depression, and 27.7% have moderate or severe anxiety.
In a sector like Impact, driven by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda for 2030 and their daily realization, it is easy to forget that for a healthy professional life, personal balance is necessary, both physically and mentally. To help others, it is necessary to be in a place where we first ensure our own Well-Being. The Inner Development Goals (IDGs) are the challenge we now leave, not only to our in-house Community but also to the broader Community that Impact unites.
These IDGs are a set of goals that promote internal development and focus on the personal and social dimension of each individual – Being, Thinking, Relating, Collaborating, and Acting – essential for later addressing the global challenges, SDGs.
Opening the program to Entrepreneurs outside Casa do Impacto seeks to create a strong support base that allows more leaders in the sector to benefit from a holistic approach to Well-Being and everything that depends on it. We believe that in this way, we can foster a culture of Social, Environmental, Emotional, and Psychological Sustainability, taking Impact to the world but ensuring that its area of action starts at home.
Stay tuned to our Eventbrite where, monthly, you will be able to learn about the dynamics and activities we have prepared for you and sign up for the one that makes the most sense for you.
YOU ARE (ALSO) OUR TARGET!
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