Village Social Enterprise learning material, guidance and networking Erasmus Project

Project Title

Village Social Enterprise learning material, guidance and networking

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

As in many countries rural areas are facing the same contemporary societal challenges, such as a tightening economy and diminishing local services, there is a need to find new tools for rural communities to cope with the future. One possible solution is the development of rural social enterprise (SE). Social enterprises can be defined as businesses where the social impact of activities is prioritized to an equal or greater extent than making a profit. The concept is, however, a relatively novel in the rural development across much of Europe. There is much local potential, embedded knowledge, and skill in rural communities to improve local service provision and employment, but the people usually do not recognize this or know how to make full use of it. Therefore, there is a need to raise the capacity of the local people to better address the community potential and needs by increasing their knowledge and skills of community activation, partnerships and networking, business thinking and recognizing the social impacts of social entrepreneurship in local communities.

Although there is much learning material available for entrepreneurship and start-ups, they usually do not consider the social, cultural, political, or environmental factors related to rural social entrepreneurship, or the interaction and management skills needed in rural communities.

The ViSEnet-project aimed to meet this challenge by creating learning material to enhance the ideas and methods for promoting and supporting social entrepreneurship in rural areas by offering evaluated and piloted online learning material and to further support the development of rural social entrepreneurship, and encouraging people interested in rural social entrepreneurship to join in an international network of rural social enterprises to exchange experiences, good practices and disseminate learning material created. Experiences gained through the project have been written into a Guidebook of Good Practice for further use targeted at both learners and educators as well as policymakers.

Therefore, the project brought together a strategic partnership of expertise of four universities: the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute (Finland), the Estonian University of Life Sciences (Estonia), The Nürtingen-Geislingen University (Germany), The Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania) and Inspiralba, a social enterprise from Scotland.

The open access ViSEnet Online Learning Resources consists of three modules: 1/ Community Involvement, 2/ Networking and Partnerships and 3/ Social Enterprise Solutions. Modules are designed by identifying key elements and good practices and piloted with rural communities for feedback. Learning material is practice oriented and meant for self-study or used in teaching. It is also easy to share, reproduce and use within a community context. Networking is continued in the Rural Social Enterprise Hub, a networking platform for collaboration, peer to peer learning, and knowledge exchange, that is welcoming all the people interested in rural social enterprises to join in. The Rural Social Enterprise Guidebook of Good Practice: Experience from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Romania and Scotland, brings together the main experiences gained during the project and provides practical guidance and advice on how to avoid the main pitfalls of a community-based social enterprise. In addition, the guide presents the examples of social entrepreneurship in rural areas, information about the key stakeholders and provides policy-based policy recommendations to promote social entrepreneurship.

As a result of the project, the rural communities and other learners have new tools and methods to develop their communities and build the competence and know-how of innovative community solutions based on social business principles. Supporting the development of SEs in rural areas will enhance active citizenship and helps better to address the future challenges (e.g., lack of skills, jobs, services, and social exclusion in rural context). Encouraging people interested in social entrepreneurship to join in the Rural Social Enterprise Hub enables rural communities to access peer support and learn from others after the project.

Project Website

https://ruralsehub.net/visenet-overview/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 215974,8 Eur

Project Coordinator

HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Inspiralba Ltd
• ACADEMIA DE STUDII ECONOMICE DIN BUCURESTI
• HOCHSCHULE FUER WIRTSCHAFT UND UMWELT NUERTINGEN-GEISLINGEN
• EESTI MAAULIKOOL