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[[Дата публикации:: 29.12.2012| ]] [[Язык статьи::english| ]]

'''YOUTH FACTORY OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP (SE) – A NEW WAY OF THINKING'''

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.

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.