innovation – Social Enterprise Development in the Baltic Sea Region

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The energy of social economy pioneers in Central & Eastern Europe

European Social Economy website posted interesting relation from the meeting held on 13th May – The energy of social economy pioneers in Central & Eastern Europe.

On 13 May 2022, Social Economy Europe participated, alongside with FEBEA, the European Commission (DG EMPL), the OECD, Community Finance Ireland and many other key stakeholders, in the Conference Enterprising for tomorrow, organised by the ADV Foundation, in cooperation with ENSIE and EASPD among others, in the beautiful romanian city of Iași. An in depth mission report will be published soon , but some takeaways deserved to be shared already:

The key role of ADV Foundation as a pioneering group of work integration social enterprises, not only thourgh its innovative projects as wise.travel (a travel agency), but also as a catalyser of social economy entrepreneuship and in the whole region, through its accelerator. In short a highly innovative group with a vision for the social economy in Romania and in the whole region.

The energy in the room, full of (mostly young) social economy entrepreneurs from Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Armenia. Mostly young people that believe in the social economy as the best way to start up their projects. As the rochdale pioneers in 1844, these young entrepreneurs -in 2022- also believe in an organisational model based on a people first approach, democracy, solidarity, education, and reinvestment of profits.

The importance of framework conditions: public procurement, legal frameworks and access to social finance being key challenges. Again, a group of pioneers supported by ADV, FEBEA, and many other actors of the romanian social economy community have launched AFIN, the first social and ethical finance institution of Romania.

Read more here:

https://www.socialeconomy.eu.org/2022/05/20/enterprising-for-tomorrow/

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.

PAPER
Innovative Social Entrepreneurship: Development of Youth Social Activity

The aim of the work is to study the accelerators of social initiatives as a specific social environment and the practice of experimental testing and development of innovative social entrepreneurship of youth. The orientation of the individual towards social entrepreneurship and the development of readiness for it can only partially be explained through the prospects of a future career.

In many ways, entrepreneurship is a way of personal development, empathy, social creativity. Social entrepreneurship is a form of social innovation activity that goes beyond the usual norms, which requires appropriate conditions. The created terms should take into account the current specifics of the young generation and the factors affecting the development of its social potential. The most important person ability of an individual is to overcome social uncertainty and create socially positive ideas as the basis of their personal and professional success

The created terms should take into account the current specifics of the young generation and the factors affecting the development of its social potential, taking into account the transforming influence of social institutions.

First of all, it is the ability to overcome social uncertainty and create socially positive ideas as the basis of their personal and professional success. As the most effective conditions that stimulate the activity and development of the individual is the possibility of choice and practical experimental testing of social creative ideas in the conditions of free choice.

The full article is available HERE or as a download below.

To cite this article: Starshinova, A., Chikova, E., Pankova, S., Lesina, L., & Shkurin, D. (2020, July). Innovative Social Entrepreneurship: Development of Youth Social Activity. In International Scientific Conference on Philosophy of Education, Law and Science in the Era of Globalization (PELSEG 2020) (pp. 354-357). Atlantis Press.
To link to this article: https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200723.073

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Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Blog | Educational Materials | English | Youth

Youth Upskilling and Experience Through Social Innovation

Watch this lively conversation with Estefania Fernandez, a serial educational entrepreneur, youth leader and polyglot originally from Spain. After relocating to Berlin, Estefania created her “Business Model Republic” Meetup group to connect with others. This group exploded to more than 6 thousand members, and became an obvious launching point for her latest venture: e-bloom. E-bloom is an international community where young business graduates gain skills by participating in social innovation projects.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Fe9Blbwp0[/embedyt]

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.

Blog | Inspiration | Learn | Youth

DALBA – Beer that means more

Meet DALBA, social enterprise which is a part of NESs’t Fund network which is investing in entrepreneurial solutions that lift people out of poverty.

In spite of Poland’s strong economic growth, many find it difficult to secure stable employment and reliable wages. More than 18% of young people under the age of 30 are unemployed, with women, people living in rural areas, and people with disabilities especially affected. NESs’t investments in Poland focus on social enterprises that connect these potential workers with training and jobs in growth industries like technology, business process outsourcing and health care.

DALBA is an award-winning craft beer brewery in Puck, Poland that employs people with intellectual disabilities. It is the first in Poland and sixth in the world of its kind. The business addresses one of the most serious social problems in Poland: labour exclusion and social marginalization of people with intellectual disabilities. Today, only 10% of people with disabilities participate in the labor market.

The production process of DALBA’s craft beer counts on a group of 30 young men with disabilities who are also shareholders of the cooperative. Some prepare malts with a recipe and boil it, while others are involved in bottling or labeling. They do so without supervision, having received training from management to work with precision.

DALBA was co-founded by Agnieszka Dejna, a mother of children with disabilities, and Janusz Golisowicz, an occupational therapist of patients with disabilities. Agnieszka and Janusz often heard these young people seeking greater independence in their lives, but unable to achieve it as a result of their parents fear of discrimination and harassment in the workforce. Today, DALBA’s craft beers are rated Top 50 out of 270+ brands in Poland.

Browar Spółdzielczy (Cooperative Brewery) originated from the passion for beer, sea and the need for change. We brew our beer in a traditional manner, in small brewery in Puck, Poland. The brewery is owned by Spółdzielnia Socjalna DALBA (Social Cooperative DALBA).

This is not just an ordinary workplace, this is passion. Most employees of the cooperative are the people who have not had a chance on the open job market due to their disabilities. Their engagement and determination results in our beer being something exceptional, dreams coming true and a chance.

That’s why DALBA slogan reads “Piwo, które warzy więcej” – it’s a word play on the Polish words “warzyć” (to brew) and “ważyć” (here: to mean).

DALBA and NESsT partnered to increase the production capacity of the enterprise, positioning it to generate higher revenues and to increase its employment of people with disabilities. With a grant from NESsT, DALBA upgraded its equipment, generating a production growth of 15%. The next phase of investment is the expansion of its production hall.

DALBA’s tailored business mentoring focuses on consolidating its rapid growth, leveraging co-investments, and strengthening its impact measurement. As it prepares to launch five locations in the next two years, NESsT and DALBA have also been collaborating on managing the enterprise’s product portfolio, by identifying and developing products with higher margins, and on ramping up its sales efforts.

NESsT is excited to support DALBA as the enterprise has proven to be equally committed to empowering youth with disabilities and developing award-winning craft beer.

Answering the global Covid-19 crisis, NESsT has developed a special support plan for its portfolio. To support Dalba, we are working together to remodel communication and marketing strategy in order to generate additional revenues to sustain Dalba’s operational costs and revenues that decreased due to Covid crisis.

Source and more information: https://www.nesst.org/dalba; https://en.browarspoldzielczy.com/strona-glowna

Blog | Learn | Youth

Youth Building Skills and Gaining Opportunities Through Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation

“Nearly 90% of young people today live in low and middle-income countries. Around 200 million adolescent people are not in education programs and 13% of young people globally are unemployed. This presents numerous challenges and hinders young people from acquiring skills which will be useful for their further development and activation in society. However social innovation presents an opportunity for young people to create their own opportunities by themselves.

The covid-19 pandemic presented a challenge in terms of peer-to-peer interaction, education, community involvement and overall engagement. The need to adapt to difficult circumstances has inspired young people to find new ways to interact, especially through ICT solutions. A study commissioned by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre named ‘ICT-enabled social innovation services for active inclusion of young people”, stresses that ICT driven social innovation for young people is focused on three main areas: education and training, active inclusion aimed at supporting young people’s entry into the labour market and youth inclusion addressing issues around social and civic participation. Many youth initiatives have done the best they could with their resources thanks to ICT solutions. Social innovation became the cornerstone to transforming youth initiatives into smart organisations.

There are numerous examples of how young people have taken the initiative and have created socially innovative solutions in many EU countries as well as globally, before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. We have the example of Zafer Elçik, a 24 year old from Turkey who recognised that his autistic brother was most attentive when he was using his smartphone, which gave him the inspiration for the idea of an educational Gaming app which would serve children and young people with learning difficulties and special needs in order to help them develop their cognitive skills. Otsimo, the app he developed is now helping more than 30.000 users and is downloadable for free. There are numerous European initiatives which have been pioneers in social innovation among youth, such as Capacitare, Consultoria e Negócios Lda, Citizens in Power, Geopaideia, etc.

In this period of uncertainty, having young people collaborate and innovate along with their peers to find solutions which are socially advantageous is more important than ever. Through peer to peer collaboration they can find solace during troubling times and contribute in their community, therefore regaining a little agency in the development of their social circles as well as beyond their initial sphere of influence.

The labour market is currently governed by large industries, nevertheless it is still noticeable that entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important. The labour market can be shaped and renewed thanks to the potential that can be brought by young social entrepreneurs and their innovative solutions. Although social entrepreneurship is an innovative concept in and by itself, there are still areas and niches which have not been explored and have not been served. This presents an opportunity for young people not only to focus on an activity which has a positive impact on society and turn it into an enterprise, but to automatically reduce youth unemployment as well.

It is important to remind young people that before starting to develop their project or business idea they need to start by creating a solid plan and form a team of peers that can help them navigate their project. They can seek the help and consultation from civil society organisations in their vicinity, they can pitch their ideas to potential investors and therefore involve more potential partners in what they have envisioned.

There are a plethora of opportunities for young people who want to start something of their own. One of these examples is the Erasmus programme for young entrepreneurs, thanks to which a young person can be mentored and assisted by an experienced entrepreneur in another EU country.

A network which can be of relevant importance to young people who are interested in developing their idea or in finding like-minded individuals to develop their socially innovative idea with, is the JEUNE network – The Young Entrepreneurs Organization of the European Union, which currently represents as many as over 1,660,000 young people from 20 countries who are interested in entrepreneurship. As it is the largest European-wide network of young entrepreneurs it is crucial to foster and create relations between civil society, companies as well as governments with the aim of voicing the needs for development of entrepreneurship among youth, as well as improving the opportunities for youth by creating a relevant and useful network, which is at their disposal should they need it to further their prospects.

To conclude, it is clear that young people nowadays come across many challenges in acquiring employment opportunities, and social innovation through entrepreneurship is still what can be considered a niche through which they can become active members of their communities as well as earn their living or even create employment opportunities for their peers. It is up to decision makers to help foster this and it is up to CSOs to offer guidance and partnership to those young people that wish to become social innovators in their communities. ”

by Caterina Rende Dominis

Source: https://digitalsocialinnovation.org/youth-building-skills-and-gaining-opportunities-through-entrepreneurship-and-social-innovation/

This publication has been prepared for the Social Innovation Network project and is fully consistent with INDIGISE project objectives. 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.

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DESIGN THINKING FIELDGUIDE FOR SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AND INNOVATION

This field guide has been developed in response to the specific needs of Social Enterprises and other stakeholders within the social economy. Design Thinking has been proven as a way to help businesses and organizations respond to customer needs with innovative and human centered solutions. The guide is organized within a bespoke, socially oriented design thinking framework, containing free to use tools for each section and instructions and links to other resources within the instructions for each tool. There is a section on training and facilitation for support agencies, VET’s and in-house design thinking trainers.

The Design Thinking Guide is for social enterprises. The guide will be useful for many levels of social enterprises, from social entrepreneurs or start-up social enterprises to larger, longer standing social enterprise who are looking to become more sustainable. The guide is also designed for NGOs and civil society organizations, consultants and advisers in the social economy and design thinking sectors. It includes a well-documented step-by-step path to introduce you into the logic of the design thinking phases and how they are applicable to the philosophy and the challenges of social enterprises.

Below you can see the introductory video, but to access the whole guide, please click HERE.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSXCA3B_36w[/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.

Database | European Union | Support for SocEnts | World

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Our goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. We draw on 60 years of experience and insights to better prepare the world of tomorrow.

Together with governments, policy makers and citizens, we work on establishing evidence-based international standards and finding solutions to a range of social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and creating jobs to fostering strong education and fighting international tax evasion, we provide a unique forum and knowledge hub for data and analysis, exchange of experiences, best-practice sharing, and advice on public policies and international standard-setting.

Find out more about how to OECD can supports you both nationally and globally: http://www.oecd.org/about/

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Linking Social Impact with Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competence Building

There are different understandings of social impact, which covers “a common good”, “common actions for social good”, “engaging people into social campaigns”, “helping/caring for people”, anything that makes communities prosper. The need of boosting the social impact is explained by the concept of Doughnut Economics, which recognizes the inseparable connection between the economy and environmental and social affairs. The concept has been developed on the understanding, that the economic theories taught at educational institutions exclude the elements of society and nature, which makes them perfect in theory and not meaningful in practice. The Doughnut model demonstrates two circles: the outer circle represents the productive limits of the planet’s generative systems as the limits that the human economy must not exceed. The inner circle represents the social foundation of what a high-performing economy must provide to every human being. [1] A sustainable, safe, and just environment is in the middle. There are different understandings of social impact, which covers “a common good”, “common actions for social good”, “engaging people into social campaigns”, “helping/caring for people”, anything that makes communities prosper. The most important aspect of social impact creation is consulting and working closely with the direct beneficiaries, as often happens that most sincere efforts are being perceived wrongly due to the cultural differences, lack of knowledge, and miscommunication. Local contexts of the beneficiaries, as well as experience of global practices have to be taken into account when fostering social impact.

The most important aspect of social impact creation is consulting and working closely with the direct beneficiaries, as often happens that most sincere efforts are being perceived wrongly due to the cultural differences, lack of knowledge and miscommunication. Local contexts of the beneficiaries and experience of global practices have to be taken into account when fostering social impact, incl. best practices in social work, education, sustainable business and public services. At this point creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship (CIE) skills are required to direct efforts towards social impact.

Within the VISION project, more than 120 international experts were asked to reflect on the future of CIE teaching and learning. Transversal skills and the Growth Mindset was the focus of discussions, considering CIE skills as keys to foster positive social impact. However, often CIE, is not perceived and communicated right. Creativity is often associated exclusively with arts and artists; entrepreneurship – with business; innovation – with start-ups and tech-intensive industries. Still, society and even educators lack the understanding of a wider meaning of CIE. According to the experts, creativity can be applied in a wide range of life situations and can be defined as the ability to find several solutions to a problem, using a simple process of ideation, accepting the different perspectives, combining ideas, and putting them into practice. Innovation is strongly connected to transdisciplinarity and involvement of a variety or settings and stakeholders into the collaborative social design. Entrepreneurship skills enable strategic vision and the ability to find and put the right resources together to turn ideas into products, services, activities, etc. Lately, it has become clear that entrepreneurship education should not be about the theories of business management, but rather encompass practice-based and problem-focused activities, that develop an entrepreneurial mindset for further business-specific skills acquirement.

Modern CIE teaching requires an innovative learning ecosystem and methods, that are different from classroom-based lectures. The most innovative education providers look completely different: the spaces are open, promote peer-learning and less formal interaction between students and teachers. The learning spaces can be literally located anywhere – in a company, NGO, community or elderly centre, etc. It broadens the horizons of learners as diverse stakeholders are involved in learning, as well as develops flexibility and adaptability in learners and facilitators. The last two aspects are crucial, as future professionals will have to switch professions and work dynamics several times during a lifetime. Therefore, education needs to be focused on the teaching of critical thinking, the ability to identify the right information, analyze it and synthesize it instead of memorizing of specific knowledge that is several years might be outdated.

Future CIE teaching will focus on personality development (not specific professional knowledge only). Personal skills will include leadership and empathy towards the topics of research, which will be linked to real problems and focused on practical solutions. Multidisciplinary student teamwork, SDG-orientation, cross-sectoral support, incubation, acceleration and hackathon programmes, community-focus, experience exchange will be the future of higher education. CIE teaching will be characterized by transdisciplinarity and cross-sectoral collaboration. Triple Helix model will be in place when responding to the needs of future impact makers: civic partnerships, industry, researchers, policymakers, and communities. The change will be reflected in designing new university programmes, capacity building projects for public authorities, and new talent acquisition programmes for businesses.

Higher educational institutions are not the only learning trend-setters anymore. The global, national, and local networks of experts and supporters are built around the world to support social impact education. Entrepreneurship skills development for the youth is promoted through specialized programmes for pupils’ learning enterprises development in the school environment (e.g. Junior Achievement Programmes). For business-oriented people, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship infrastructures are developed with various business hubs (e.g. Impact Hub), coworking spaces, (Social) Hackathons, Business Incubators, and Accelerators, Innovation Labs (within or outside the academia), etc. In these settings, networking with professionals and experts is of special significance for finding the right knowledge and development opportunities. Local Ambassador’s approach, mentoring and coaching programmes will become even more popular in the coming decades for learning in terms of social impact delivery. Also, social impact creation will be highly dependent on social entrepreneurship and social innovation support programmes, as already practices by Ashoka, Social Impact Award, Acumen, Changemakers Academy, and many more. Fellowships, mentoring, coaching, continuous training, peer learning, and learners’ pairing with practicing entrepreneurs are the methods applied within social impact education.

Service design, design thinking, intergenerational learning, Theory of Change, peer leadership, mentorship, coaching, fellowship, and other methods and frameworks demonstrate the potential to enhance community leadership and serve governors and citizen groups. Such needs-based and human-centric designs allow supporting collaboration for civic participation, participatory budgeting and crowdfunding. Building community-run spaces (community gardens, cultural centres, etc.) could provide more opportunities for designing creative, needs-based initiatives together with governors, NGOs, entrepreneurs.

Upgraded CIE teaching and learning without any doubts will support the formation of the new society and serve new market needs. New professions are expected to become demanded in terms of social impact. For instance, community builders are expected to become significant actors in the job market, as demand for community-based activities will only increase. Encompassed under the terms of community organisation, community work, activism, and community development, community builders will be responsible for gathering stakeholders and organising neighbourhood events, festivals, community spaces, interest clubs, focusing on the areas of social inequalities, injustice, and disintegration, as large industrial neighbourhoods, tiny villages, etc. Another socially-oriented future career path that will support social impact design is social impact auditor. As social impact measurement will be of the same importance as an economic measurement for organisations in the future, auditors will assist companies and organisations in social impact delivery.

Generally speaking, education in the 21^st century has to be adjusted to the dynamics of the changing job market. Specific knowledge delivered today might not be useful tomorrow, therefore abilities to be flexible, adjust, innovate, be creative, entrepreneurially minded, empathic have to be trained in a systemic manner. With sustainability in mind, social impact making is going to be the new “black”, if communities are well prepared for future VISIONs.

[1] The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries (2017) by Kate Raworth, source: https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2017/05/03/why-a-just-and-sustainable-economy-looks-like-a-doughnut/?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20170505

Acknowledgment

Further research in the area is a part of EU Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance VISION project EAC/A03/2018, application: 612537-EPP-1-2019-1-SI-EPPKA2-KA. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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Internship at Social Enterprise Estonia and moving towards a greener lifestyle.

I am Katerina Chantzi and I am a social scientist. I am very excited to be an intern at Social Enterprise Estonia during my studies at Tallinn University in Social Entrepreneurship Master’s Programme. I started my internship in June 2020, a time when we were slightly starting to get out of our lockdown “caves” and looking for human interactions. All the colleagues that I was looking forward to meeting and working together in the same place became fascinating squares on my screen on a weekly basis full of creativity, interaction, knowledge and passion to find ways to make this world a better place.

I am very excited and proud of this internship, as my supervisor Helen Mikkov gave me the opportunity to utilise my previous experience and knowledge, encouraging me to discover new paths (by participating in Climate KIC Journey, get in contact with enterprises that are in the network etc.) that would help me to find out what contribution I would like to have in the world and make steps towards that. In the meanwhile, I am running my company, called BinFree, where we offer recycle pick up services in Estonia to facilitate the recycling process for consumers and recycling companies by measuring the environmental impact of both and give practical information to move towards a greener lifestyle and give private consultations to companies and individuals to reduce their environmental impact in their daily life with little effort.

My experience from the education sector, my studies and actions in social policy in different countries, in combination with my national culture (Greek) that taught me through its ancient literature and drama to live my life by keeping in mind my posthumous fame (“υστεροφημία”) and make decisions throughout my life keeping in mind how I would like to be remembered after I pass out from this life and considering their impact on myself, people around me and the environment around me during my life, made me realise that my mission in this life is to bring people together to act collectively, to help each other in order to increase theirs and other peoples’ happiness by increasing their quality of life. The COVID-19 outbreak is a great example of human responsiveness when in danger regardless of social differences (in front of a virus everyone is vulnerable regardless of social status and wealth), people got together, worked together and acted instantly, responsively and effectively in order to defeat the impending danger. How we respond to the main danger that is threatening us, was created by us and we still feed it, called climate change and how we can defeat it?

By having inefficient state mechanisms to solve social and environmental problems due to shortage of funding, as they considered as unproductive sectors to invest for economic growth due to the fact that they require an interdisciplinary approach, time, expertise, effort to give results and they reveal the vulnerabilities of the dominant social, economic, political system and a dominant neoliberal ideology that influences every sort of today’s policies and politics and has a big negative impact on society and the environment, as it creates short-term financial profits without considering the long term social and environmental impact, there is need to find solutions that protect life and not cold cotton, polymer or paper banknotes.

Social enterprises are a great response to the dominant economic system and its characteristics, as are more flexible in their operations, are social aim driven without losing their business character, are able to combine and bring together key actors from different sectors (either private or public) and try to make a change in the current system without breaking it but reshaping its core. I could characterise social enterprises as hybrid organisations that are born from social justice and economic growth and would lead us to the future of sustainability and long term by transforming the current economic system and push innovation and technology for social and environmental sustainability.

Climate change is a threat that we need to address as soon as possible, as we have very limited time to act and change our current economic system in terms of production, product design, product life cycle, world trade and product distribution, impact measurement in terms of societal and environmental footprint, resource management (materials and labour force), consumption patterns and social values regarding the way we consume. Social enterprises that are already active in the field of environmental sustainability, have a wide variety of opportunities to invade in those sub-systems and create innovative solutions. The decade 2020-2030 will be a transformative decade towards entrepreneurship and climate change and social enterprises need to take the lead on this, to promote social entrepreneurship, help the social groups that are mainly affected from climate change, either by directly employ them or offer them the possibility to develop relevant skills or by enhancing the current production and consumption system by intervening and creating innovative business models.

The main principle that social enterprises that work with environmental sustainability and climate change are that mainly they work with people that are not aware of the problem, are not experts and cannot relate with the problem and devote time to acknowledge the problem. There is no doubt that this creates a lot of obstacles, but at the same time is a great spectrum that can generate innovative solutions for how to educate, engage, motivate people to change their behaviour patterns, start thinking about their consumption habits and decisions, feel part of the problem and at the same time part of the solution by supporting social enterprises’ aims.

In parallel with that, social enterprises need to benefit from their flexibility, adaptability and expertise, and for their unique characteristic that they make a local impact with strengthening and empowering communities. In the post-COVID world (or even still COVID world) that everything takes place virtually, social enterprises need to connect with each other, communicate their aims, visions, missions and results and combine all these small incubators of social action in a big scheme that is accessible to everyone and introduce themselves to the world (besides their direct beneficiaries), create calls for action and show their overall impact. The more visible social enterprises are the bigger their influence and their impact and recognition.

Collaboration and communication need to happen not only among social enterprises but also with the businesses of the current system of production and consumption. Circular and sharing economy offers a range of possibilities and opportunities for social enterprises to discover and explore what can be created from waste, how logistics can have a less environmental impact and how the 5R’s (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot) can be promoted, adapted and integrated as main practices in our daily lives, as mainstream practices. There is a need to strive from the “Take-make-use-waste” model to “take-make-use-reuse/repair/return/recycle” model and social enterprises have the flexibility to experiment in this transition by increasing the employability of certain social groups that contributes to social coherence, by raise awareness on these topics and present data and facts that people that are not familiar with the sector can relate with. For instance, investigate the environmental impact in terms of financial loss within the upcoming years for corporations.

To sum up, social enterprises cannot change the world alone, however, they can be the main actors in this transition and they need to create demand both to consumers and to providers/sellers/main actors in the current market. To achieve this successfully, they need to establish collaborations with stakeholders from the private, public and third sector, have a clear mission, engage people to their goal, explain the importance of what they do in ways that their target audience understands and have a great marketing strategy in place. National and international governments and organizations need to take some more steps forward and put in place besides financial indicators of growth (a great example is GDP), indicators of social growth. Sustainable Development Goals have achieved to have a common terminology around the globe for sustainable development and certain goals, but still, the call for action is at the discretion of the organization. Legal regulations, taxation and investment possibilities can promote initiatives that respond to climate change and environmental sustainability and offer incentives to social enterprises to increase their impact. COVID-19 world taught us that we can respond immediately and effectively for incidents that we consider as important. Let’s learn to act proactively, collaboratively, human-centred and with the responsibility to ourselves, live around us, our ancestors and our future generations.

Blog | Educational Materials | English | Support for SocEnts | Uncategorized

Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring Circle for Women

Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring Circle for Women (ETMCW) is a concept delivered by European Activism Incubator. It is a year-long innovative, flexible training programme directed to Brussels – based women, who wish to launch a social or environmental impact business, a social enterprise or a non-profit project. The training has been designed to support a diverse group of women living and working in Brussels in becoming economically empowered through entrepreneurship. Its aim is to provide women with solid and actionable skills, which will increase their initiative’s likelihood of success.

The design of the training will allow its participants to focus specifically on their idea for an impact project that they bring to the table. The skills curriculum is strengthened by a strong ICT element, as today’s entrepreneurial success strongly relies on proficiency in digital skills. The curriculum also addresses systemic challenges encountered specifically by women and teaches specific leadership and professional skills needed to overcome them on the entrepreneurial journey.

Innovative, responsive and inclusive

ETMCW provides a set of directly actionable skills for women, specific to their project. The participants immediately apply the business or project development principles, concepts or tools explained by a tutor to the project they wish to launch.

The progress of each participant is monitored and the content of classes is adapted and tailor-made to the individual’s needs. This markedly differs from a majority of classroom and online-based business and entrepreneurship courses, which teach a variety of principles that may or may not be relevant to a specific project, context, background or situation.

The responsive design of ETMCW also means that the course can address many important aspects that hold women back in addition to their gender, such as race, origin and class, making the programme truly intersectional.

The course departs from the traditional top-down, classroom-based approach to education, applying instead a mix of teaching methodologies that are highly empowering. It is interactive and participative, and includes circle discussions that build on emergent collective knowledge, experience exchange and mutual support.

The concept has been developed from experiences gained through the Beginner Entrepreneur Mentoring Programme for Women, which provided solid insight into the needs of women with entrepreneurship aspirations.

More information can be found here: https://activismincubator.eu/training/etmc-women

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.

Meet DALBA, social enterprise which is a part of NESs’t Fund network which is investing in entrepreneurial solutions that lift people out of poverty.

Innovative, responsive and inclusive

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