Social Innovators Network Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Innovators Network

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Social entrepreneurship / social innovation

Project Summary

The project is part of a larger program, Social Impact Award, founded in 2009, is an education and incubation program, implemented in 20 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, supporting early-stage youth social entrepreneurs in developing and implementing innovative business solutions to tackle the most important societal challenges of our times. SIA Education program aims at raising awareness about social entrepreneurship among youth and teaching the necessary skills to navigate from vague intentions to promising ventures. “Social Innovators Network” at the first stage map the youth social initiatives and further on will bring together young people and youth workers from 3 countries of the region of Central Europe (Slovakia, Czech republic and Hungary) in order to foster the partnerships, peer-to-peer learning and ideas of youth for social enterprises and their intentions to become entrepreneurs. In the second step of the project we want to connect and train the youth workers, mentors, and other multiplicators working with the youth in the field of entrepreneurship.

We will train in 4 days 21 youth workers, teachers, multiplicators from 3 partner countries /7 per country. “Train the trainers” training will be taking place in Hungary during which we will gather the people working with the youth to give them the basics in the social entrepreneurship which they can further on apply in their work with youth (in schools, youth centres, etc.) . The training will enable us to create a wider network all over the countries. Trainer participants will therefore become multiplicators and will help us to reach wider range of our target groups. Here is important to mention that with the program we are especially aiming to reach youth from more disadvantaged regions we need to have a strong network for people working with them on a more regular basis, one time workshops are definitely not enough for them to get motivated and encouraged to get more involved in the field, therefore we identify the need to train more people, who can support them on the journey on the different levels and stages of their progress. This is a very important part of the project in a long-term perspective, since we want to continue building up the capacities of the people working in the field of the social entrepreneurship.

We are working with the target groups of youth workers and youth itself in the project. 3 days bootcamp for young social innovator and change-makers from all 3 countries will be taking place in Slovakia. The bootcamp will be an inspiring event that will increase the motivation of the participants even further to work on their ventures and will enhance peer-to-peer learning. We want to gather them based on the specific topics and industries in which they want to operate in order to learn from each other’s experiences, provide feedback to their peers and create space for potential collaborations in the future. This will be achieved through grouping the participants based on two criteria: the stage of development of their social business idea and the problem they want to tackle; and not by the country of origin. In such groups, participants will engage in group work, peer feedback and sharing sessions, in order to foster connection building and peer learning.

The last but not least, the project results will be presented during the so called “Social Impact Award SUMMIT”, where we would like to have regional clusters in which one panel will be dedicated on “Social Entrepreneurship in Central Europe”. The Summit The Summit is SIA’s international flagship event and marks the end of the annual SIA cycle. It is a gathering of SIA winners, SIA organizers and international partners.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 50129 Eur

Project Coordinator

MLADIINFO SLOVENSKO & Country: SK

Project Partners

• Fenntartható Vállalkozásokért Alapítvány
• Hub for Change, spolek