National Scoop! competition – Croatia

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We are proud to announce that the winner of the Croatian National Scoop! competition is Cooperative Drava, an idea developed by students from Secondary school Donji Miholjac, which was selected as the most comprehensive in response to social needs of the local community!

Seven teams from seven VET schools in Croatia participated in the competition for best social cooperative idea which was held in Rijeka on 19th of June 2021. After all the groups presented their social cooperative idea, the jury had a difficult task to decide which idea was the best.

The jury consisted of 3 experts in the field of social entrepreneurship, Ana Janežić (Step Ri Science and Technology Park of the University of Rijeka), Helena Traub (Association Žmergo) and Dario Zorić (Rijeka Development Agency PORIN). The evaluation consisted of the following criteria: (1) consistency of the idea, (2) originality and feasibility of the product on the market, (3) marketing and promotion, (4) financial resources management, (5) contribution to Sustainable Development Goals, (6) social innovation and (7) presentation of the project idea.

Congratulations to all and we wish good luck to our winners in the preparations for the EU Scoop! Competition which will take place in Florence (Italy) at the end of September 2021. At the international competition the winning teams from Croatia, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain will compete for the title of best social cooperative idea in the SCoopConSS project!

CTC Rijeka would like to thank all the students and teachers from all Croatian schools that have participated in the project and national competition for their participation and we hope to see their ideas grow and develop in successful social enterprises.

Here is the list of schools which participated on the National Scoop! Competition and a short description of each idea:

PROBA is a project developed by students from Beli Manastir through their school cooperative which was founded in 2016. The objective of the school cooperative is to prevent emigration of youth in Baranja by creating new work opportunities. Also, to nurture social values among student and encourage them to actively participate in their local community. Activities of cooperative include education for young people, production and sale of organic fruits and vegetables, cleaning services, making and sale of souvenirs, etc.

Students from Donji Miholjac developed a cooperative which will address the biggest problems in their local community: unemployment, social exclusion, unused nature potential and resources and lack of cultural and social content. School cooperative Drava created a two-phase project which will renew their local community. Phase one consists of renovation of city gardens, cultivation of different agricultural plants, production and sales of homemade products. The second phase consist of restoration of river Drava coastline and opening a camp with different cultural content. This will create new job opportunities, activate the community and increase its visibility in the region.

Students from Labin want to create a healthier and more active local community, especially among youth. They recognised the potential of their region and its natural beauty so they decided to promote healthy life-style outdoors and raise awareness about coexisting with nature. This will be achieved through organization of guided tours for locals and tourists, team buildings for different organisations, workshops and education for youth and camp about recycling, sustainable development and benefits from nature.

Gai Lan is an organisation initiated by students from Metković who decided that they need healthier meals for their school lunch. Since there is an elementary school and two secondary schools in close vicinity, the group recognised health problems connected with diet and poor choice of meals during school breaks. This is why they decided to develop a healthy alternative. Gai Lan would procure ingredients/food from small, local family producers and employ socially excluded groups to work in the healthy food corner, prepare and sell food. This way they want to help students to have healthy meals and their wider local community to be sustainable and socially inclusive.

Cream is a school cooperative developed by students from Osijek. The aim is to enable student to have practice inside school cooperative, gain experience for further work and improve their employability in the future. Working in Cream, students will produce energy bars from ingredients which will be procured from local family producers and create gift boxes for school board members when they travel for business. The profit will be invested in creating a waiting space for students who travel a long way to school.

Students from Split created a way to encourage their colleagues and youth from local community to eat healthier. As a part of their school cantina, they will prepare healthy meals for students and public because they can buy them to-go. The surplus of meals will be donated to local public kitchen to help the vulnerable in their community.

Students from Zagreb developed an innovative and healthy snack machine. The machine is applicable to all facilities who want to have a healthy snack alternative. Healthy box contains fresh/dried fruit and vegetables from local produces, yogurt, fresh juices, etc. It is innovative because it uses an algorithm which informs the supplier when the certain product is used and needs refilling. The plan for future is to have possibility to pay with cryptocurrency.

Results of the competition

1st place: Cooperative Drava – Secondary School Donji Miholjac

2nd place: GAI LAN, Healthy Fast Food – Secondary School Metković

3rd place: Healthy Box – Engineering Technical School Fran Bošnjaković, Zagreb

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