The 5 most promising non-governmental projects in Lithuania for 2021
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The 5 most promising non-governmental projects in Lithuania for 2021

The most promising projects of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Lithuania have been announced. They have become 5 initiatives aimed at solving various social or cultural problems that are important for individual regions of the country or for Lithuania as a whole. The selected projects will be further developed in a special NGO Accelerator program.

The most promising NGO projects were selected after an intensive six-month training session. At the beginning of the year, a total of 10 carefully selected teams from 7 Lithuanian municipalities – Trakai, Širvintos, Švenčionys, Kėdainiai, Ukmergė, Šalčininkai and Elektrėnai – started the NGO Accelerator.

After the NGO Accelerator Commission evaluated the presentations of the participants’ projects prepared after the training, presented at the Pitch day event, the following were recognized as the most worthwhile to continue participating in the project and developing the ideas presented:

Kėdainiai District Women’s Crisis Center, which has created the initiative “Emotional Resistance Center” aimed at crisis prevention and strengthening women’s mutual help and support.

Krakiai Community Center, which develops social business, the community café, which sells the products of local farmers, carries out social, cultural, educational and voluntary activities that foster the culture of the Krakiai region.

LASS Pietvakarių centras, which has created the project “Sense of Tourism”, is designed to get to know the world through the senses of the blind – those who see are invited to experience the environment by touch, taste, smell and hearing.

The association “Kėdainiai Samaritans”, which together with the help of a local businessman provides assistance to the long-term unemployed, prepares, trains them and integrates them into the social environment.

Lina Baublienė and her project “Gather Lithuania” („Surink Lietuvą“), which aims to encourage people not only to travel around their country, but also to get to know its history, local people and discover new forms of travel.

The most promising 5 projects of Lithuanian NGOs this year were selected by the commission of the NGO Accelerator project initiated by the Kurk Lietuvai alumni network, consisting of Arūnė Matelytė, GovTech CEO, Gediminas Almantas, Chairman of the Board of the Open Lithuania Foundation, Marius Čiuželis, Founder of Marius Čiuželis Support and Charity Foundation and Silver Line, Justina Lukaševičiūtė, Head of the NGO Development Division of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania, Arvydas Plėta, Innovation Partner of Katalista Ventures, and Greta Monstavičė, Head and Co-Founder of Katalista Ventures.

Photo gallery: https://bit.ly/3ugsZDz

The communication campaign is part of the project “Courage to Act and Change” and is funded by the Lithuanian Rural Network Technical Assistance Facility under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe investing in rural areas.

Article is prepared under the provided material HERE.

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – a Trainers Guide
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Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – a Trainers Guide

Social Entrepreneurship through Passion –  Programme and Trainers Guide – is a new m developed to respond to the needs facing social, economic and learning difficulties.

The material is developed developed within the  project of the same name (in short “PASSIONPRENEURS”) and co-funded by The European Commission. The project adresses unemployment and social exclusion of vulnerable groups of people and try to help them find their talents and passion so they might use them to develop ideas for social entrepreneurship.

The Training Programme consists of 5 modules:
1) From Passion to Purpose,
2) Personal Value-Social Value,
3) Social Needs, Social Product,
4) Building my Social Project,
5) My Passionpreneuring.

The course that is intended to be completed in 20 hours (4 hours pr. Module) consists of a set of practical exercises, interactive tools, tips and additional resources. This is meant to help participants understand their strengths and interests and learn how to implement them in practice. Also their entrepreneurial skills will be improved aswell.

The Trainer’s Guide:
“Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – a Trainers Guide” is developed as a support to the Training Programme “Social Entrepreneurship through Passion”.

The Trainer’s Guide is meant to help experts, teachers, trainers and others working with vulnerable groups of people, so they are able to conduct the Training Programme “Social Entrepreneurship through Passion” in the best possible way. It provides deeper insights into the target group, social entrepreneurship and how to identify talents and passions to develop (social) entrepreneurship skills and promote peer learning.

Teachers and trainers can study and use the guide independently of the Programme Social Entrepreneurship through Passion to gain more knowledge on teaching the target group  in social entrepreneurship. It consists of three main chapters:
1) Methodology for the identification of interests, talents and passions (ITPs) of adults,
2) Guidance and tools for the Training Programme, and
3) Peer-Coaching.

The guide is intended to provide more knowledge and broaden the range of tools, that can be used by people teaching social entrepreneurship for people with social, economic and learning difficulties.

The organisations behind the development of the Programme and guide Social Entrepreneurs through Passion is:

VOLKSHOCHSCHULE IM LANDKREIS CHAM EV (Germany)
Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy
Asociación Caminos (Spain)
CSI – Center for Social Innovation Ltd (Cyprus)
FOLKUNIVERSITETET STIFTELSEN VID LUNDS UNIVERSITET (Sweden)
Kauno prekybos, pramones ir amatu rumai (Lithuania)
IDEC S.A. (Greece)

Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – a Trainers Guide can be downloaded here

You can find more info on the facebook page for “Social Entrepreneurship through Passion” here

 

 

This publication has been prepared within SENBS project No. 2020- 1-EE01-KA204-077999. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Change Please – A successful english social enterprise

Change Please – A successful english social enterprise

Change Please, started in 2015 in London by giving homeless people the opportunity to run their own mobile coffee shop. Since then, the company has been very successful.
Change Please’s coffee is now available in Virgin Atlantic’s aircraft, the company has started selling England’s only CO2 neutral toilet paper and have recently bought a larger coffee bar chain all to help homeless people.

The core activity of Change Please is to train homeless people to become baristas and in that way hopefully get access to the labor market.

Homeless people start as interns at Change Please’s Specialty Coffee Association training center, where they cover all aspects of coffee making, from green beans and frying to making “latte art” and customer service. The goal is to equip them with the skills and experience so they can start a new career and get a safe place to live.

In addition to providing the homeless with work skills, the focus is also on the broader needs of homeless people. With a secure income, one can e.g. start helping to improve living conditions, help with therapy needs. Change Please also helps with some of the practical administrative challenges that homeless people face when they return to working and have to manage their finances.

In addition to selling coffee from mobile coffee bars, Change Please has also produced its own coffee blends, which eg. are sold in Sainsbury’s 375 stores across the UK and in Change Please’s own webshop. The webshop also sells shopping bags and T-shirts.

100% of the profits that Change Please receives is uset to give homeless people, a living wage job, housing, education, opportunities in the future – and in general a good start to a new and better life.

Serious Tissues – new initiative
In 2020, Change Please expanded its activities with a new initiative – Serious Tissues.
Serious Tissues is a toilet paper brand of 100% recycled paper that is CO2 neutral , which is sold to help frontline employees in the NHS (England’s national health service). The brand and the visual identity have been developed by the independent creative agency, Above + Beyond.

The original intention of the initiative was to focus on tackling climate change through a commitment to plant trees around the world. But Corona has provided a more immediate need. So instead the Serious Tissues initiative has chosen that every penny from initiative should go to help patients and volunteers because they are dealing with this crisis on behalf of everyone else.

100% of the profits from Serious Tissues goes to the NHS Charities Together COVID-19 Urgent Appeal initiative. The initiative is coordinated by NHS Charities Together, which is an umbrella organization for 170 of NHS charitable initiatives across the UK. The money will be used where it is most needed and distributed by local NHS charities to eg. help NHS staff through the demanding long shifts they have in trying to fight the disease, as well as help with travel, parking and accommodation expenses for staff and volunteers and to support the recovery of NHS staff and volunteers after the pandemic.

To make the brand CO2 neutral Serious Tissues plant a tree for every roll of toilet paper that is sold. Serious Tissues works with communities in a number of countries and helps create employment for people who need it. The trees are currently planted in the United Kingdom, Nepal, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Haiti, Colombia and Central America. The trees planted are indigenous species that are native to the regions in which they are planted.

In addition to toilet paper, the Serious brand also has a soap product – Serious Soap. Serious Soap is an initiative to combat plastic pollution in the oceans, and for every soap bar sold, 3 kilos of plastic are removed from the oceans.

Expanding to news locations
To further increase its impact, Change Please has just acquired AMT Coffee, which is a coffee shop chain with 55 coffee bars. This is done as part of a strategy to create more social enterprises.
It is p
art of the purchase agreement that Change Please retains the 370 employees that AMT Coffee has today.The 55 coffee bars are located in connection with airports, train stations and hospitals.
The purchase is financed by Change Please itself as well as with loans and fund donations from Social Investment Business and Comic Relief. In connection with the acquisition, Change Please has taken over a debt of £ 5 million that AMT Coffee primarily owed in rent. According to Cemal Ezel, head of Change Please, the AMT coffee shops will be run as a separate company owned by Change Please and the profits from the company will be donated to Change Please. (Or more precisely to Change Please´s community interest company).

Change Please across borders
Change Please is not just expanding in England. In November 2020, Change Please Australia was launched in Perth, Western Australia in collaboration with the Australian organization Five Senses. The good results that Change Please has had in England in bringing homeless people to work as coffee baristas can now hopefully be transferred to Western Australia. There are currently about 9,000 homeless people here, so there is a need for solutions that the Chang Please can provide.

Read more about Change Please at: https://changeplease.org
Watch YouTube video about Change Please here

In Denmark, the social enterprise Kaffe Karma works according to the same idea of helping the homeless by selling organic coffee to-go from mobile coffee shops, from events and arrangements or directly from the company’s webshop. For the time being, Kaffe Karma is primarily active in the Copenhagen area.

Sources :Pioneers Post and Big Issue

 

This publication has been prepared within SENBS project No. 2020- 1-EE01-KA204-077999. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Building better lives – pack to deliver activities on social enterprise.
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Building better lives – pack to deliver activities on social enterprise.

Students as agents of change

The pack contains six principal lesson plans as well as suggestions for activities in the classroom and community. The activities spur students to think about social problems in their localities and further afield and the role that businesses and social enterprises can play in addressing them. As the lessons progress, students working in groups develop a business plan for their own social enterprise and the most promising of these plans is turned into a real social enterprise.

In Birmingham, for example, students, staff and parents at the Victoria Park Primary Academy run Ballot Street Spice, a social enterprise that roasts, grinds and blends spices by hand and sells original spice products and cooked foods. The social enterprise draws on the rich cultural and culinary heritage of the local area – whose residents speak over 40 different languages – in order to build community cohesion and offer real learning for young people. Ballot Street Spice is recognised by Ashoka as one of the most successful school based social enterprises in the UK and is credited by the school’s executive head as offering a strong model to promote social mobility in a disadvantaged community.

 

Beneficial outcomes

According to the Social Enterprise Academy, “establishing a social enterprise engages young people in the practical and creative skills required to run a viable business, develops their skills for learning, life and work and enriches their sense of social justice.”

 

External links

From Tczew with Love
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From Tczew with Love

“Szafa serc”/Wardrobe of Hearts/ Charity Shop is a new social initiative based in Tczew, Poland, which started its’ activity in June this year.

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Recently we’ve visited “Szafa Serc”, as we were interested in finding out on our own how the 1st charity shop in Tczew works. We were amazed by the warm welcome, the genuine and heartwarming social idea behind the shop and the fantastic community gathered around the shop. Owners not only support women who had trouble with finding a suitable workplace when having a small child but also engage the local community and in the local community, i.e. by helping the family foster care located nearby. Read more about this great place, and do not miss your chance to stop by if you visit Tczew in Pomorskie Region, Poland, in the near future.

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It is a place with a soul, where things get a second life, people get new career opportunities, and the natural environment is taken care of. The shop was founded on the initiative of 3 active women, citizens of Tczew, who represent the “Prosto z Serca” Association, in cooperation with Social Entrepreneurship Supporting Centre “Dobra Robota” and the local community who care for their weakest members and sustainable development.

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The idea of ​​the charity shop is to help others. “Szafa serc” sells new and used items donated by organizations or individuals – clothes, small interior furnishings, toys etc. It offers articles at very affordable prices and good quality, often branded companies. Therefore, it contributes to balancing the social difference in local society. The basic principle of the charity shop is to donate the entire amount of money earned (after deducting the costs of maintaining the shop) for statutory purposes.Profits from the shop will go in financial or in-kind assistance to people in need and a difficult life situation. The initiative will permanently support heating space for homeless men in Tczew, and in addition, every month, it will choose specific institutions or families to give them the support needed.

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This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

Social gastronomy for social impact
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Social gastronomy for social impact

Food is a concept that is understood universally in the whole world. People connect over it, and there is no day we can go by without a meal, too. Since it takes up so large portion of our lives, it is inevitable that food can also be a great catalyst, or prism through which impact in society can be achieved. Which is why in this article we will take a look at the concept of social gastronomy.

What is social gastronomy?

The term was first widely presented by David Hertz. First, he decided to tackle societal injustice in his own surroundings by launching his business, Gastromotiva, which offers vocational kitchen training and runs programs in nutrition, food education and business incubation for people from low-income communities like those in the favelas. After some time with the help of international investors he launched launched the Social Gastronomy Movement: a global effort to tackle social issues through food.

In the basis of this movement, his understanding of societal impact is evident. And to explain one of the ways to create impact through food, here are a few principles he mentions as crucial (republished from this article).

We can use food to create a more inclusive society.

Food touches on every aspect of human life: the environment, agriculture, our economy, health, even our social lives. Social gastronomy “uses food to turn social inequalities — such as hunger, poor nutrition, unemployment, inequality — into dignity, opportunities and well-being,” says Hertz. But what does this look like in practice?

A culinary education can bring opportunity — and dignity.

David Hertz experienced how much empowerment culinary education can bring, and it goes beyond mastery of knife skills. “Social inclusion requires education, because education leads to job opportunities, which can help you provide for your family, but it also means you’re known by society, you’re recognized as a citizen,” he says.

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Food can build empathy and community.

During the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Hertz partnered with Michelin-starred Italian chef Massimo Bottura to open Refettorio Gastromotiva, a pop-up community kitchen that turned leftovers from the Olympic village into world-class meals for Brazil’s homeless people. Not only did Refettorio reduce food waste, the space also gathered an amazing community of athletes, tourists and journalists who mingled with the local customers — a rare thing during an Olympics, which can often exclude local marginalized people.

“We were born to be afraid of the homeless, because we don’t know anything else,” Hertz says. “But after you serve, and you talk to people and you look into their eyes, it changes, because you see that you are not better than them. In the end, I can say that 99 percent of the people that come as volunteers, they always say that they got more than what they gave.”

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What now?

The example of David is just one of the ways how food, impact on society and social entrepreneurship can come together to make the lives of everyone better. There are many more famous chefs and entrepreneurs working in the field! Among others, check Soul For Food by Massimo Bottura or World Central Kitchen by Jose Andrés if you are interested in seeing the potential business models. But the good thing is – we all have a possibility to change our habits and make our own individual change through food. Talk to neighbors and share the leftover meals to reduce the food waste! Or cook up a recipe from IKEA scrapsbook. Surely, you will find other ways to contribute by a simple Google search. But meanwhile take a look at the inspiring story of David Hertz in his TEDtalk (below).

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiUW59ZTeg8[/embedyt]

 

This publication has been prepared within SENBS project No. 2020- 1-EE01-KA204-077999. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

 

MedUP social entrepreneur support toolkit
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MedUP social entrepreneur support toolkit

This toolkit has been designed to assist organisations and individuals who work to help social entrepreneurs, from pre-start through to scaling social ventures. The toolkit can be used by anyone, though it is primarily aimed at those who are new to working with social entrepreneurs.

This toolkit complements training provided by Impact Hub through the MedUP! programme, however it can also be used on its own as a stand alone resource. It is a collection of advice, resources and information grouped under subject headings and placed in a relevant order. It contains key topics, resources and ideas that will support you along your journey as a supporter of social entrepreneurs. It also has questions and exercises for you to complete as you think about your own ecosystem and to prompt you to evaluate how you might adopt and adapt these learnings to your own context.

A short insight in the pages:

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The toolkit is based on many years of experience and evidence of what works for social entrepreneur support. The social entrepreneurs you work with will be at varying stages of readiness, when they approach you for help. Your organisation will also grow and change on your journey to enabling social entrepreneurs to start up and grow. Feel free not to use the toolkit in a linear way, but focus on the information and resources that meet your specific needs at any particular time, adapting it for use to your local context and conditions.

medup toolkit

 

This publication has been prepared within SENBS project No. 2020- 1-EE01-KA204-077999. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.