Social Enterprise 360 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Enterprise 360

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

Social enterprises offer a model for 21st century business that balances financial, social, cultural and environmental needs. Governments and public bodies are giving more and more attention to social entrepreneurship. It is a moment in history when we need to turn our attention to social entrepreneurs and put a lot of effort into supporting the creation and development of more social enterprises. Young people care deeply about many of the challenges they see in the community around them: making the lives of handicapped people easier, helping young people improve their search for jobs, working to make cities cleaner and safer, promoting better eating and fitness habits. They often have good ideas about how these problems and others could be tackled, but they may not know how to turn their ideas into action.In spite of the quick increase in accessibility of entrepreneurship education, social entrepreneurship remains isolated almost exclusively to university courses and programs, and the same happens in other countries across Europe.

The objective of the project was to create a new educational programme, Social Enterprise 360, that tackles social entrepreneurship, practical entrepreneurial experiences and the development of transversal skills. It is a 360° educational approach that combines learning outcomes with assessment, formal with informal learning, in school and out of school experiences, local and international engagement, teachers and mentors, online interaction with face-to-face activity is the key to impacting entrepreneurship education.

Nine organisations where part of this strategic partnership, representing 8 European countries, and bringing together schools, NGO providers of entrepreneurship education, social enterprises and a university, EFOS, where a UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship teaches and who was in charge of the qualitative evaluation of the partnership. Junior Achievement Romania has been implementing programs for students of different levels for more than 20 years in Romania working closely with Ministry of Education to design new curriculum and policy development. Their expertise in the areas of teacher training, scope and research, content development for educational modules and program was highly valued and explored in the coordination of the work done by this strategic partnership. Economic College Partenie Cosma represented the world of school in the project, giving first hand feedback from teachers throughout the developments. Four other Junior Achievement national organisation brought knowledge in developing education content from their own experience and piloted the programme in the 2015-2016 academic year. These organisations are: SEN/JA Greece , Jong Ondernemen, Junior Achievement Italy, Junior Achievement Spain). The European Office of Junior Achievement, JA Europe, brought expertise in the area of international project management, reaching out to potential sponsors and important stakeholders at the European level. The role was JA Europe was valued also in the area of blended learning. Grameen Creative lab, a social business co-founded by Prof. Muhammad Yunus brought competences in working with social entrepreneurs around the world.

The activities during the first year of the project were focused around the development of the intellectual outputs and preparation for the teacher trainings and classroom implementation. Also, since year one we looked into the sustainability of the project, starting conversations with educational authorities, teachers and schools. The second year of the grant, starting October 2015, the pilot implementation of the educational programme resulted took place in five countries being represented in the partnership. Throughout the project duration we have organized six multiplier events under the grant, five transnational project meetings.

The main priorities addressed by the work on this project were promoting the take-up of practical entrepreneurial experiences in education and training and fostering the assessment of transversal skills. We have addressed the first priority by putting together an education programme designed for high-school students in which they will have access to a firsthand entrepreneurial experience, promoting in this way their involvement in such activities, as well as considering entrepreneurship a career option.

More than 10,000 students, 544 teachers, 363 schools participated in the pilot implementation of the Social Enterprise 360 programme, in nine European countries: Romania, Italy, Greece, Spain, Netherlands, . The participating students developed 668 social projects. More than 2,500 students with fewer opportunities participated. 23 businesses have supported the classroom implementation with 258 employees acting as business mentors. Malta, Belgium, Denmark and Serbia joined the pilot.

The project remains available for further implementation and we foresee more countries implementing it.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 200284,26 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIATIA JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF ROMANIA & Country: RO

Project Partners

• JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT EUROPE
• Fundacion Junior Achievement España
• ASSOCIAZIONE JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT-YOUNG ENTERPRISE ITALY
• Stichting Jong Ondernemen
• The Grameen Creative Lab GmbH
• SVEUCILISTE JOSIPA JURJA STROSSMAYERA U OSIJEKU EKONOMSKI FAKULTET U OSIJEKU
• Colegiul Economic Partenie Cosma Oradea