“In the beginning of May we were sent by Shokkin Group Estonia to the Black Sea coast in Turkey, where a week-long training course on the topic of social entrepreneurship in youth work took place. It was a super-informative week full of hard work that was also really fun. We covered thoroughly the topic of social entrepreneurship, both through theoretical and practical approaches. We developed our own business plans, played a game of establishing a market within the group and selling different services and we watched movies on the topic and did exercises to become more comfortable in the business language.
The participating countries were Estonia, Denmark, Malta, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom. The group was relatively small – there were around twenty of us – which made the bonding easier; the group also had a wide age range, which again made the whole course much more interesting – everybody had interesting insights to bring into the group, as well as many inspiring ideas. The project house provided a lovely environment to do all this brainstorming in – with a view overlooking the Black Sea and the mountains in the background it was easy to get inspired and come up with good ideas. Between the working sessions we were very well fed by the local hosts with food straight from the garden. During an intercultural business evening we learnt all about business customs in all the participating countries; during another evening event – ‘’Speed-dating’’ – we got to know each other on a more personal level.
During this week all of us became more aware of the main issues in each of our countries; we also explored different solutions to these problems and went through the main action steps that should be taken to establish a social enterprise. We were guided by very knowledgeable facilitators that presented all the information very clearly and inspired us to be more active in our societies. A lot of emphasis was put on the follow-up steps – how to apply what we have learnt to youth work, what opportunities are there for developing your ideas into concrete social actions etc. It was a great training course all in all – while we worked hard, we also had time to enjoy ourselves and have fun!”
Maria Kurm
“We developed our own business plans, played a game of establishing a market within the group and selling different services and we watched movies on the topic and did exercises to become more comfortable in the business language.”
“In the beginning of May I took part in the training course organised by Shokkin group called The World of Social Entreprise. First and foremost I’d like to thank everyone, who took part in organisation and implementation of the project, who made it all happen. The training course was quite intense, which was exactly what I expected and desired, as, in my opinion, the subject requires intense work in order to go deeper into it and actually get new knowledge and not to leave only with “a bag full of positive emotions”.
All of my expectations that I sat up before going to the course were met, which does not happen very often and shows the good quality of the project. The subject was not entirely new for me, so I was aiming to learn more about social entrepreneurship as such and the knowledge I received will for sure come in handy in my future work in the 3rd sector. The trainers were experienced both in the subject they deliver and got solid facilitation and delivery skills, which made the educational process smooth and enjoyable. There was a good combination of theory and practice, methods use were variable, whereas the tasks were though provoking and challenging at some point. Overall experience was great. Once again, thanks everyone for the opportunity and keep up the good job!”
Darja Robva
