Ready for Social Entrepreneurship

Aims & objectives

The main objective of the project was to give participants basic knowledge of social business models, business communication strategies, marketing and social media promotion, team-building for social enterprises, the importance of leadership and types of leadership in successful enterprises, and inspire a spirit of innovation. These were implemented by peer to peer learning, discussions, open space, role-play (job interviews), CV presentations and evaluations, games on communication strategies. As a preparation to implementing business strategies participants received tasks to manage micro projects, such as creating a video on social impact of business in teams, drafting business canvass and making interactive brochures on the topic of the project.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

There were 56 participants: 10 representatives from Ukraine, 10 from Bulgaria, 8 from Turkey, 10 from Spain, 8 from Lithuania and 10 from Romania.

Training methods used & main activities

Methods used during the project were defined by its relevance to the topic of social business management. They included video-making workshops, business strategies simulations, peer to peer learning, discussions of business models, open space, role-play (job interviews), CV presentations and evaluations, games on communication strategies and brainstorming, as well as drafting canvass and SWOT-analysis.

Outcomes of the activity

As a result of the training participants learnt to create successful European CVs, grasped the basics of job interviewing, non-violent communication at work, strategies and sources of online promotion, basics of video and photo editing. They created 8 interactive videos on the topics of socially conscious economies and prepared sections of a brochure on social entrepreneurship that will be later assembled into a toolkit. Planned for beginning of 2018.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

My main role was to help participants understand the basics of communication, both personal and through social media, private and business. I created and carried out sessions on leadership and managerial responsibilities, verbal and non-verbal communication, video-making, social media marketing and brochure drafting as well as theatre simulations of conflict resolution in work environment. As an extracurricular activity I provided morning sessions on mindfulness and meditation.

I worked on this training for 6 days as a full time trainer.