NGO “Mis? Kus? Millal?” is glad to report the
results of the training “Youth Factory of Social Entrepreneurship (SE)”: spearhead
of “Arengu Sammud” group has announced the start of the first Youth Factory of
Social Entrepreneurship :)
Read more...
Last summer an energetic international team of
youth leaders from five countries – Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and
Estonia – gathered in Narva. They arrived to discuss in details the only thing –
social entrepreneurship (SE) and to learn
how it can be used in youth work.
This was the second stage of the long-term
project “Youth Factory of SE”, which had been worked out by thinking alike
great minds from “Mis? Kus? Millal?”, “Arengu Sammud” and “HEAK”. One year ago
in Estonia was held a planning meeting of partners, where participants from 11
countries shared their experience in SE and discussed the opportunities of
further cooperation.
Youth Factory of Social Entrepreneurship
Youth
Factory of Social Entrepreneurship is an enterprise (business, company)
invented, developed and managed by youths. The main principle is to combine
entrepreneurship, innovations and – which is more – social benefits. For young
people it creates an opportunity to demostrate their creative and business
potential. Factory developers actively research the social processes and define
their role in the society. It all goes along with team building practice,
obtaining the first work experience as well as skills and competences necessary
for business entrepreneurship.
Youth Factory method is based on Learning by
Doing/Experiential Learning. Due to that fact the training was organized so
that to give all the participants a
chance to actually experience, live through and feel all stages of the Factory
and obtain experience of managing the process. Theory was implied into
activities, which resembled more a game in the beginning.
Mastering the process of creating
Youth Factories, participants successively lived through every step: from building
a work team and selecting the creative idea to creating a product and
exploiting it on the market. And it was all real! Participants were divided
into groups in order to conduct social express-surveys and correct their ideas
in accordance with the results of the surveys. They also met with businessmen
and learned from their experience. Furthermore, they presented their product to
mentors and worked with business-consultants. The point and characteristics of
social entrepreneurship were illustrated with actual examples – through meeting
the experience of exact businessmen.
All in all it was a
business-simulation: within a short period of time the participants played the
roles of Factory developers and were able to see, think over and assess the
processes, opportunities and youth challenges from inside.
Is it possible to combine a good deed and
profit?
Many
people think that a non-profit organization is, by default, far away from
business. Young people are also affected
by prejudice that business is the tough world of unfair play. As a result, NGOs
mostly deal with project activities, volunteering and searching for sponsors.
However, there appear more and more businessmen who are interested in social
development, and the socially responsible business is currently expanding. The
training enabled the participants to compare socially targeted entrepreneurial
models and find the solutions that would combine social work and business,
focusing on social values. Young people learned how to use a business-model as
a means of youth work.
Participant’s opinion
“Social entrepreneurship combines the best features of two opposites –
NGO and a business company. And this makes the organization developing social
entrepreneurship more stable and competitive”.
“Great work is done by people who are not
afraid to be great.”
Among the
most common problems of youths the participants of the training mostly focused
on the issues of employment. They were also discussing inactivity of young
people and the difficulty of obtaining the first work experience. Current
economic situation claims that teaching young people theory is not enough. It
is far more important to create work places and provide youths with work
experience. Youth Factory method is an opportunity for young people to create
their own business able to bring money and social profit as well as develop
their skills and competences. According to organizers, this is the extra value
that is brought by this long-term project.
Benefits of multiculturalism on the national
level
The main
focus of the training was made on the youth work with national minorities in
the countries–participants. The main difficulties are fluctuation of personnel
and the isolation of the organizations, which means a low rate of involvement
from national majority population. According to Aleksei Razin, “Game Club”
general manager, one of the development directions is to attract people to more
active participation in order to maintain the organization. The participants also
mentioned the recent changes in the way of arranging the life of national
minorities. Lyudmila Ilyuhina, the director of Russian Culturology society
“Skazka” (Norway) reported people joining the society due to their interest
towards the Russian language and culture: “And these are not only ethnic
Russians. Polish, Norwegian, Spanish people interested in the Russian language
and conversational practice are glad to join us”.
Renata Kalivod, trainer (Latvia):
Russian-speaking organizations have a tendency to stick to their own
target audience, which leads not to cooperation but to segregation. Social
entrepreneurship must have the exact market for selling its goods and services,
which mean work and finding contacts with different social groups to understand
market demands and plan exploiting and selling these goods and services. This
will lead to marketing expansion. The more people in the organization, the
better it is for experience and opinions exchange. Different points of view
create a broader tension zone and result in a higher-quality development.
Got interested? Join us!
International
project of Youth Factory of Social Entrepreneurship: Jobs, Enterprise, &
Society is supported by:
* Estonian
bureau of Euroopa Noored/Archimedes as a part of the programme „Youth in
Action“
* Nordic
Council of Ministers,
* The
Council of Gambling Tax in Estonia.
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