On 9-11th May 2022 almost 30 young people from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Norway had an opportunity to participate in the International Social Entrepreneurship Camp organized by the University of Klaipeda within the Indigise project. Participants promoted youth social entrepreneurship in the Baltic Sea region, and also had a chance to seek positive social and environmental changes in society.
The workshop in Lithuania was conducted under the guidance of experts from universities, non-governmental organizations and business networks, who acted in accordance with the latest trends in education. Participants of the Indigise project event provided support and through educational tools used in non-formal education were able to:
- co-create youth-oriented, innovative educational tools to develop entrepreneurial competences in the field of the social economy;
- disseminate the idea of social entrepreneurship among young people in the northern region of Europe;
- provide the necessary competences and support tools to enable young people to develop ideas for social business;
- promote the concept of social entrepreneurship and support new social enterprises in the Baltic Sea Region create ways of encouraging young people to innovative and creative thinking, cooperation and risk-taking through two camps – InnoCamps, organized in Norway and Lithuania in 2021;
- co-create a document – InnoCamp Methodology Handbook – a step-by-step instruction on how to prepare a similar camp – InnoCamp for young people, which can be used by: schools, educators, non-governmental organizations, etc.
The exchange of experience, learning about functioning of existing social enterprises and international cooperation resulted in many great and financially aspiring business ideas, which were later consulted during the online part of the event on 13-14th May 2022. It was also an opportunity to present the socialenterprisebsr.net platform, carry out individual consultations on the participants’ business plans and get to know where to look for substantive support by young entrepreneurs.
“Through this short trip, we were able to get to know each other in the context of social coexistence and demonstrate the most important social dilemmas for the development of our own business focused on social goals. Thank you for welcoming us and for the opportunity to take advantage of the experience and we look forward to the next ones “- said Dawid Markun, one of the participants.
One of the outputs of this event is the “Social Entrepreneurship Innovation Methodology Manual” which outlines guidelines for organizing innovation camps or similar events with a strong emphasis on social entrepreneurship.
The handbook is a set of interactive and innovative educational materials and ICT tools as well as gamification and brainstorming methods dedicated to training, education and awareness raising on social entrepreneurship among young people, which is recommended for use later by schools in other EU countries, universities, NGOs, etc.
The event has been developed under the INDIGISE project funded by the Erasmus+ programme. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.