News

This February mentorship program started in Lithuania. Young people who want to know more about starting a social business were invited to register for this mentorship. 

Main idea: To encourage young people to choose a social business model and increase knowledge about social business benefits for society. Also to promote cooperation between young people and the business world.

Participants had four meetings with professionals who have a vast amount of knowledge in the business area. Young people prepared their ideas about the social business they want to establish. Mentors gave all information regarding successful social business examples, law regulations, valuable workshops, and tools for starting a social enterprise.  

One of our participants Evelina shares: “I am glad that we are continuing mentoring and friendship with Viktorija (mentor). I am grateful for the project, during which I found essential answers, started moving forward and established partnerships that were useful for the implementation of the project.”

Dr. Fredrick Bill was leading sessions on Social Entrepreneurship Development and strategic management. His profound views about the subject and International examples have made his sessions well-accepted amongst the students. Here you can see the entire training program day by day:

• Day 1 & 2: Social Entrepreneurship Development 
• Day 3 & 4: Social Entrepreneurship Development – Project Finance
• Day 5 & 6: Mentoring on Entrepreneurship Development for Selected Students
• Day 7 & 8: Social Entrepreneurship Development – Corporate entrepreneurship
• Day 9 & 10: Strategic Management(SM) – Mckinsey 7S Framework
• Day 11 & 12: Strategic Management(SM) – Business Model Innovation
• Day 13 & 14: How to Use a Business Plan as A Tool?
• Day 15 & 16: MBA (HR) students: Introducing Entrepreneurship
• Day 17 & 18: International Marketing
• Day 19 & 20: Entrepreneurship development (Project finance)
• Day 21 & 22: Strategic Management(SM) – VUCA World and Strategies for Economic
• Day 23 & 24: Strategic Management(SM)-Strategy Formulation
• Day 25 & 26: Sources of Innovative Ideas.
• Day 27 & 28: International Marketing

Mentorship pairs were formed in India to teach youth different skills. The project participants were introduced to the leading social problems. Later on, they had training courses in different activities. The main idea was to teach them various skills that they could use to start their own social business.

1. Paper and cloth bag making Workshop

Plastics have grown to a great extent in our daily life and now plastics have become an integral part of our lives. The use of plastic is so extensive and frequent that the ecological balance is wholly damaged and its serious consequences are found on animals and humans. At this workshop, youth were mentored on collecting old newspapers, mats, rings, and stripes, converting them into finished paper bags and selling them as social Entrepreneurs.

2. Baking workshop

The baking workshop was carefully designed to cover various aspects of baking and provide students with a better understanding of it. Experts and chefs conducted this workshop. For participants, they showed various essential elements such as usage of raw materials, how to blend products correctly or set up perfect oven temperature. This baking workshop was designed to meet 100% hands-on experience.

3. Pot making Workshop

During this workshop participants were told how to make pottery. This is a great example, how the ability to make something from clay can lead to opening a social business.

4. Sewing Workshop

This workshop taught young ladies how to use sewing machines and showed them the easiest ways to make all kinds of clothes. This is an excellent way to start a social business if you have basic knowledge of sewing.

5.  Red Dot Bag Making workshop

The Red Dot Campaign was formally launched this year. The city-wide the project was launched in two parts, one to raise awareness on ways to dispose of sanitary waste and the other, to make sanitary napkin manufacturers more accountable. At this workshop, the youth was learning to make red dot bags.

A local conference to spread SEH project ideas was organized in India. The main topic was Social Entrepreneurship – stage of development, future and challenges. In the early days, founders of social entrepreneurship made significant changes to societies. However, they did not have much support or recognition. In the past two decades, interest in entrepreneurship increased. More and more groups of people and companies want to be involved in the structure of social entrepreneurship. Nonprofits and non-governmental organizations, foundations, governments and individuals fund and advise social entrepreneurs around the planet. A growing number of colleges and universities are establishing programs focused on educating and training social entrepreneurs. Some of the new methods are geared towards creating long-term changes instead of small-scale effects. During this conference, students showcased their ideas and we encouraged them to seek their goals.

We created an interactive game about social businesses in Lithuania.

This game has 30 questions about what social business is. Also, here you can find not only answers but also ideas, learn about five social businesses that are operating in Lithuania and maybe even find inspiration to create something of your own! Five people who have tried the game will receive a book as a gift – Social Business: Systematics and Mechanisms.

Link to the game: https://en.actionbound.com/bound/SocVersloZaidimas

Local training about small-scale businesses in Kiboga city, Uganda aimed to teach vulnerable youth about how to start their small-scale businesses. Educating them in the social business area will help them to learn the basics of proper business management, marketing. To begin with, twenty participants were selected to join the training. There youth acquired skills in three different skills and they were selected to deal with social problems in Uganda.

1. Making candles – access to electricity is still very limited in the area, therefore the skilling in candle making will improve on access to lighting in the community.
2. Making soap – liquid and bar soap making will increase hygiene in the community. Hunger is still a painful problem.
3. Bakery – baking skills will improve their food ration. Using flour from matooke, cassava and sweet potatoes (locally available) for cooking will let young children from vulnerable families get what to pack and eat at school. This will improve the grades of young children in school.

Business development and management of social enterprises was incorporated in the training of the beneficiaries as they were taken through day to day skill training. The beneficiaries were trained in different modules of business management and development included; accounting (bookkeeping), marketing, Managing competition, record keeping, saving and financial management. The trained youth will become ambassadors in training other youth in the social enterprises in the community.

Post evaluation to document the project’s impact in the longer term will be done after six months.

Mentorship programme – a long way from the scratch of an idea to final result – prototype of an idea or even product. The main goal was to provide individual assistance to local youngsters who want to establish a social business. Ten mentorships were granted for the youth of Kiboga city. This programme included one to one sessions between the mentor and participant.

These are the social ideas of each participant offered (and that mentors’ consultations were based on):

September 24, 2020

November 17, 2020

December 10, 2020

December 12, 2020

The SEH conference meeting was held on 15/01/2021, At SS HOTEL KAMPALA.

Theme – to raise awareness on Social Entrepreneurships Heroes project.

The various stakeholders were invited to attend the conference, which included – the local leaders, social workers, community development officer of the Sub-County. SEH Youth Conference brought a group of 30 vulnerable young people of similar ages and a couple of adults together from Kiboga district.

This conference aimed to inform others, what was this project about and what has been done. All activities were introduced, which happened during the entire project. Main speakers of this conference were successful social entrepreneurs from Kiboga, who advised the youth on how to start a social business that benefits the community and helps to have a stable job. Community members, who participated in the SEH training gave their feedback about the project. Results were introduced to the target audience: young people, potential educators, social workers, researchers.

On October 6, 2020, a meeting of scientists of the Faculty of Economics, representatives of social business and students was held on the topic “Business Reset: new formats”.

The topics:

• Nikkel Leila – a topic of the report: “Social entrepreneurship in the context of a pandemic: problems and prospects”;
• Gakaeva Aishat – topic: “the Internet is after a reboot: trends and new formats”;
• Aimbetova Aida, Shipilova Elizaveta and Seidullayeva Adema – topic of the report: “Smart trip-travel of a new generation”.

The incredibly rapid development of information and telecommunications technologies and the spread of the coronavirus infection (COVID-19) are radically changing not only our daily habits, the way we communicate and the nature of our work. All modern business, including social entrepreneurship, is in the process of transformation. Companies respond to the challenges of the times by adapting their business models to rapidly changing circumstances and implementing new, more effective tools. Students and undergraduates of the Faculty of Economics presented current research and a startup project in the field of social entrepreneurship, digital marketing and smart technologies in tourism.

It is right to say that the project has officially begun!

On the 10-14th of January, all partners met in Vilnius, Lithuania to commence first work for social entrepreneurship around the globe. Partners on this project include Active Youth based in Lithuania, Associación Civil Red de Acción Climática (RAMCC), based in Argentina, Karaganda State University based in Kazakhstan, Muwanga Development Association based in Uganda, and Bharati Vidyapeeth based in India.

During the kickoff, project’s team visited various of local entrepreneurs and social enterprises. For example, Mano Guru — a salad bar in Vilnius which employs ex-cons — to better understand social enterprises as well as the current social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Lithuania (and the EU in a broader sense). During the rest of the kick-off meeting, partner organizations founded a plan for the duration of the two years facilitating this project. Project aims to organize and conduct training courses, exchanges, and various other activities in each of the project countries as well as to create an open-source online platform were youth and other enthusiasts could learn about social entrepreneurship.