Balkan Women Coalition vol. II – Social Start-Up Booster for Supporting Female entrepreneurship in Balkans Erasmus Project

Project Title

Balkan Women Coalition vol. II – Social Start-Up Booster for Supporting Female entrepreneurship in Balkans

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Gender equality / equal opportunities; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

Social entrepreneurship is often underestimated within the EU. Social businesses employ over 11 million people in the EU which equals to 6% of total employment. Research has furthermore shown that many women are struggling with unemployment and lack of social perspectives, especially in small and rural communities. Overall, 9.5% of women in the EU are unemployed and are still facing barriers to employment, such as fewer promotional opportunities. In the area of selfemployment, the numbers are not much more promising; only 34.4% of women in Europe are self-employed even though being the larger population group (52% of the total European population is female). Social entrepreneurship can address these challenges. On the one hand, the EC has stated that Social Enterprises ‘generate sustainable jobs and have a stronger resilience to the crisis than the general economy’ social entrepreneurship combines innovation and social inclusion, and hereby it broadly contributes to the objectives of the EU2020 strategy. On the other hand, women who do decide to set up their own business often choose to do this in the areas of health, social-work, services or education, areas that correlate deeply with the ‘social’ aspect of social entrepreneurship. Bringing both elements together gives the EU-community an opportunity to further develop the under-exploited creativity and entrepreneurial potential of women, in turn leading to economic growth and employability.

The Balkan Women Colaition II project aims to close the continuous entrepreneurial skills gap and lack of knowledge about social entrepreneurship among women, through an innovative approach that brings together women, social entrepreneurship and angel investment in a unique programme that will increase the number of successful social enterprises across Europe, improve gender equality and raise awareness of the importance of self-employment initiatives that focus on the support of social, cultural, or environmental issues.

The project is working on the preparation and piloting of the following main outputs:
→Output 1 – “Development of a skills assessment framework for social entrepreneurship” including country and overall reserach and analysis
→Output 2 – “Social Enterprise Booster Circle Methodology”. Development of a Facilitator’s Guide and Social Enterprise Booster Circle materials and training. training the facilitators.
→Output 3 – “Social Enterprise Booster Circle for Women – A Comprehensive Training Programme”. This package is focused on the implementation of the SE Booster Circles and the training activities offered to the project’s target group
→Output 4 – “Boost Your Social Enterprise – Building a sustainable network of business angels”. This package is focused on the development of the pitching platform and a Business Angels Network for social entrepreneurs

The partnership will address and combine the areas of social entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship, as these are both under-recognised and under-represented in the EU, in order to equip women who are currently running a social enterprise or are thinking of setting up a social enterprise with the skills, knowledge, best practices and latest community – based funding opportunities to set up and develop their ideas.

Through the development and piloting of the Pitching and E-learning Platform the project partners will build a socially engaged community by equipping it with an innovative and community-driven approach to attract funding and realise socially important project and initiatives. The project will develop a network of experts that will facilitate, build and ensure the sustainability of the project tools and results.

Increased skills, together with increased recognition of female social entrepreneurship will in turn increase women’s social inclusion as they are empowered to follow their self-employment path. Particular emphasis will therefore also be given to women facing a double disadvantage (disabled women and women from rural areas) as they are even more under-represented in entrepreneurship. Between 25 and 50% of participants will be women facing a double disadvantage.

Finally, the Balkan Women Colaition II project will increase awareness amongst policymakers through its training materails, outlining how to make social enterprise support more accessible and inclusive to women and double disadvantaged women. The project will hereby enable women to get their voices heard by policymakers and will help promote the importance of making social enterprise support available to the target group, and ensure that more women across Europe can set up their social businesses.

Project Website

http://balkancoalition.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 249091 Eur

Project Coordinator

GREEK ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS – SEGE & Country: EL

Project Partners

• Association of Business Women in B&H
• Asocijacija poslovnih zena Crne Gore
• Association of business women Skopje
• Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Bulgaria “Vselena”
• Shoqata Shqiptare e Ambientalisteve Industriale
• Türkiye Kadın Girişimciler Derneği