In the framework of Erasmus+ KA205 project called ’’Fostering Youth Initiatives through Social Enterprise Education’’, WASLA hosted the Short Term Joint Staff Training Event from the 10th till the 14th of February 2020 in Berlin, Germany.

Two staff members from each partner organizations attended this training.

The main topics in the training were:

  1. Introduction to social entrepreneurship. What it is? What are the main differences between social and non-social entrepreneurship?
  2. Understanding the principles that make social entrepreneurship necessary
  3. Becoming familiar with the recent developments that make social entrepreneurship possible
  4. How social entrepreneurship can be thought to young people wishing to start their entrepreneurial activity and bring social change
  5. Presentation of best practices in all partner countries. Each participant presented 2 examples of successful social entrepreneurship in their own country
  6. Root drivers for social enterprise
  7. Identifying social needs
  8. Market and institutional failures
  9. Drivers and context for social entrepreneurship
  10. Social innovation
  11. Social Entrepreneurship operating models
  12. Stages in Social entrepreneurship
  13. Modern approaches to creating social value
  14. Workshop: Identify problems: 5 Whys, Fishbone Analysis, Affinity Diagram
  15. Finding solutions workshop: brain swarming, Provocation, Moment to moment
  16. Filtering ideas: MOSCOW technique
  17. Customer identification and understanding the customer needs
  18. Creating a vision
  19. Finding solutions

A total number of 12 participants from Germany, UK, Lithuania, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria developed their knowledge about social entrepreneurship, better understanding the characteristics of social enterprises, principles that make social entrepreneurship necessary, different legal forms of social entreprises and their polularity in different countries, social entrepreneurship operating models and the roles of stakeholders and impact they have on social entrepreneurs.

On the 11th February 2020, participants visited Be an Angel e. V. social enterprise. Be an Angel eV is an initiative of people from the media, culture and marketing who use their skills and networks to integrate refugees into the society. Participants got a better insight about how it works an incubator for practice-oriented, pragmatic integration projects, “track” them, and then, after an intensive “proof-of-concept” phase, and how release them into independence or other support. There were also organized two workshops related to social entrepreneurship, Learn from Berlin’s top Entrepreneurs and visited the AGORA at Sony Center.

Participants exchanged examples of good practice from both their organizations and countries and learnt from each other how to better use Social Entrepreneurship education as a key element for addressing problems in everyday society.

On the 12th February 2020, participants attended the Startup Pitch Bootcamp: Learn from Berlin's Top Entrepreneurs, hosted by Ahoy! Berlin. During this event, participants got an insight about pitching, a crucial skill for acquiring financing, customers, partners and recruit potential co-founders. This intensive, collaborative workshop featured talks by leading startup Founders and helped understanding the key ingredients of a successful pitch. Participants applied their learning and pitch to both experts and peers and received constructive feedback in a relaxed setting.

On the 13th February, participants attended the ’’Landscape & Opportunity for Early-Stage Startups’’ event hosted by AGORA – Sony Center. The event coverd topics ranging from how to approach an investment round, to the differences in international investment schemes for start-ups. Following that, there was a short Q&A session as well as a networking session afterwards to help participants meet other entrepreneurs on the same journey, and to to discuss issues more specific to all participants.