Nougat Queen Meeting Queen of Belgium
19th October 2015
Ahead of European Microfinance Day, (Tuesday 20th), Ireland’s ‘nougat making queen’, Miena Rust, will meet with Queen Mathilde of Belgium in a private audience. Miena’s visit to Belgium is part of the celebrations for European Microfinance Day that is promoting micro-entrepreneurship across the EU.
Supported by Microfinance Ireland, South African-born Miena is business owner of Miena’s Irish Handmade Nougat in Wicklow. Together with John O’Donoghue of Dublin Indoor Football in Fingal, the pair also met with the Minister for Business and Employment, Ged Nash T.D. in Dublin to mark European Microfinance Day and to highlight the accessibility of funding for microenterprises.
European Microfinance Day (#EMD2015) is organised by the Microfinance Centre and the European Microfinance Network in cooperation with its network of members, including Microfinance Ireland. It aims to raise awareness of microfinance as a tool to fight social exclusion and unemployment in Europe.
Set up in 2012 by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation under the Action Plan for Jobs, Microfinance Ireland works in partnership with the network of Local Enterprise Offices to offer business loans of between €2,000 and €25,000 to companies with less than ten employees and with a turnover of less than €2 million.
Miena’s Handmade Nougat, supported by Local Enterprise Office Wicklow, was established in 2012 and employs two people. The company supplies eight different flavours of handmade Irish nougat to multiples and independent stores around the country, including 250 SuperValu stores and Avoca Handweavers.
