Smart-Social Rural Entrepreneurship Programme

“Smart-Social Rural Entrepreneruship Programme” (S-SREP) aims to increase the social entrepreneurship skills of young farmers from Turkey, Lithuania and Croatia through supporting the capacity building of local youth workers and developing cooperation between youth organisations working on rural development and to enable rural youth to gain knowledge, skills and experience in agriculture and technology-oriented job opportunities.

Objectives od the project:
1. Determine the needs of young farmers for business start-ups and social entrepreneurship, and gather experiences and approaches on using technological tools in agriculture in the project countries.
2. Create training content to equip young farmers with knowledge, skills, and experience to establish technology-oriented and environmentally friendly social enterprises.

3. Create inclusive support systems to promote the use of technological tools and social entrepreneurship in rural areas. This includes enhancing the capacity of local youth workers to guide farmers and fostering collaboration among youth organizations.

Objective: To enhance the capacity of facilitators who will support the learning process of farmers, focusing on technological tools in agriculture, rural social entrepreneurship, facilitation skills, educational methods, and peer learning.
Date and Location: August 8-15, 2024, in Karlovac, Croatia. Arrival day: 08.08.2024. Departure day: 15.08.2024

Training Content: Focuses on technological tools in agriculture, rural social entrepreneurship, facilitation skills, educational methods, and peer learning.
Post-Training Role: Participating youth workers will support the learning process of young farmers through both face-to-face and online tools. Each facilitator will be responsible for 10 young farmers, conducting face-to-face meetings, answering questions on the online platform, and reporting on the learning progress of their assigned farmers every three months.

Karlovac is a small cosy city, located on a route between the Croatia's capital of Zagreb (very close), and a bit further from the biggest Croatian port, City of Rijeka. It is known as the town of four rivers (Kupa, Korana, Mrežnica and Dobra) and with those four rivers surrounding the town, it's location provides a perfect place for learning about environment and practicing outdoor activities.
Looked from above, it has a shape of a star, with very few other cities in the world having the same geometry as it had a very important strategic role in the history.
One of the interesting facts about Karlovac is that one of the oldest Croatian brewery, Karlovačka pivovara (croatian for Karlovac brewery) was founded in Karlovac in 1854, producing since then it's most famous and one of the „main“ Croatian beers, Karlovačko pivo. There is even a saying that
beer is Karlovac's fifth river. Also, castle Dubovac watching over the town :)