European VET (vocational education and training) Education Week and International Entrepreneurship Week are marked by numerous courses and opportunities for acquiring new knowledge and skills.
How to combine vocational education and entrepreneurship? Easy!
CTK Rijeka started implementing the SCoopConSS project and held two online lectures for vocational school teachers for them to gain knowledge about social entrepreneurship. Along the way, we equipped them with new skills that they can use in their work with young people and bring them closer to the idea of social entrepreneurship as one of the possible ways to develop their careers. Social entrepreneurship is a topic that is insufficiently discussed in public and it is necessary to involve young people in the discussion and encourage them to think about socially responsible business, contribute to the community, and cares about its impact on the world around it.
At the first webinar “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship” which took place on November 20th, our colleague from STEP RI Ana Marković introduced us to social entrepreneurship and presented its basic principles. She also presented examples of social entrepreneurship in the world and in Croatia, and ways of teaching it in schools. We also had Sanja Vuković from the PRONI Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Romana Tomić from the DEŠA PRO cooperative, who had the opportunity to present two examples of social entrepreneurship in Croatia. We heard different experiences, obstacles that can be expected along the way, but also their innovative solutions.
The second webinar entitled “Financial, economic and social aspects of social entrepreneurship” was held on November 27th, when we had Jana Blažević Marčelja from STEP RI as a guest. She introduced us to the process of starting a social enterprise and explained in detail the path from the idea to its realization. We tackled the often hated financial plan and uncovered its features.
This Friday we will have the last webinar on the topic “Business Model” in which we will host Boris Golob, the director of STEP RI in charge of its business plan, innovations, and strategies. We are looking forward to this certainly interesting lecture!
The goal of the SCoopConSS project (Social Cooperative Contest for Secondary Schools) is to encourage reflection on social entrepreneurship among young people with an emphasis on high school students as a target group. They will participate in the development of an innovative methodology that will include social entrepreneurship in the existing educational program through which students will be introduced to basic concepts such as responsibility, democracy, self-help, equality, and solidarity.
6 organizations from 5 different countries are participating in the project. The coordinator of the project in Croatia is the Centre of Technical Culture Rijeka, which is part of the partner consortium of the SCoopConSS project funded by the General Directorate for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and Small and Medium Entrepreneurs of the European Commission.