‘SoG-TIM’ stands for Social Growth on Trafficking and Immigration and it is a pedagogical plan for the training of future social entrepreneurs to address the issues of human trafficking, immigration and refugee crisis. It predominantly targets prospective social entrepreneurs, focusing on women and unemployed youth, immigrants, refugees, and survivals victims of trafficking by establishing socially innovative, scalable and financially sustainable ventures. We integrate non-governmental and civil society organizations that address these issues, municipalities and policy makers, sustainable supply chain and fair trade entrepreneurs, digital entrepreneurs, trainers and educators, and collaborative ventures between ethical consumers and social entrepreneurs to co-create value for social innovation that addresses the migration and human trafficking crisis The objective of the training programme are twofold on one hand co-sharing and co-creation through transformational engagement of bottom of the pyramid (BoP) populations as value creation for survival and growth. On the other hand through learning from new approaches of action learning, inductive approaches and design thinking methodologies to develop the skills needed for social innovation and social collaborative entrepreneurship such as questioning, challenging, dreaming, imagining, experimenting, learning, problem solving, critical thinking. The partnership consists of 6 partners from 6 European countries capturing the various cultural groups of Europe but especially the regions where immigration and human trafficking are mostly found, including Romania, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, Italy and Spain. All partners are strategically situated in the areas of social entrepreneurship, in the combat of human trafficking and in supporting the livelihoods of immigrants. The methodology of the project is firstly the conduct of an exploratory mixed methods research. This will provide the framework based on which the content of the learning programme will be designed. Once the needs and challenges of the target populations have been identified, the partners will create an inspiring and pioneering approach Handbooks and Textbooks containing the learning that needs to be delivered. Also Guides targeted to specific stakeholders groups will be created and a number of multiplier events with local communities for early on engagement. An e-learning platform will be created which will include e-modules, the e-handbooks and the e-guides. The pilot learning programme will begin after a pre-testing on the partners and on a small sample of the target population. The recruiting of the pilot will take place making sure that the right mixture of participants will have been recruited in all 5 partner countries. A number of F2F workshops, mentoring sessions and events will take place to support the prospective social entrepreneurs. The training will last 6 months leaving time for reflection and application of theory into practice. At the end of the programme the participants will take part in the closing conference where they will have the opportunity to pitch and showcase their work to investors and sponsors. They will also have the opportunity to be awarded one of the excellence social entrepreneurship awards that will be given at the final conference. The programme is expected to be delivered through the partners and other stakeholders after the end of the funding. The expected impact of the programme and its benefits are: the development of social enterprises to tackle the pressing issues European societies face through transformational social impact and social value creation in the areas of immigration and trafficking based on commercial and income generating business strategies; to promote inclusive employment and to integrate into working the ‘fringe’ marginalized populations, such as victims of trafficking, refugees and immigrants; to promote the ability to measure social impact and social performance; to promote the ability of social entrepreneurs to advocate with stakeholders, local communities, the wider public and policy makers; to promote the ability to co-create value through bottom-up business approaches based on transformational engagement of marginalized and bottom of the pyramid populations and local entrepreneurs and communities; to promote the size and breadth of the social investment market by pulling angel investors, social VCs and other investment institutions to the social entrepreneurship sector and by pushing social entrepreneurs to investors through training on investment readiness, pitching and operational due diligence; to promote sustainable and ethical supply chains, fair trade practices around the world fighting against the cheap prices trend in the developed world; to train on collaborative leadership, co-creation, social embeddedness and relational governance modes for managing social enterprises.
SOGTIM - Social Growth on Trafficking and Immigration is a training and incubation platform for existing and future sustainable nonprofits and prospective social entrepreneurs in acquiring the required 21st century skills for the development of innovative, technologically advanced, financially sound, globally competitive and actively networked entrepreneurship ventures that address the issues of immigration and human trafficking crisis in Europe. We managed to have a wide dissemination of the platform worldwide, as of today over 100 participants have registered to the platform from the world over, crossing the borders the borders of the 6 countries where the members of this consortia are located. Overt thirty million people are trapped in modern slavery, mostly women and children (Global Slavery Index, May 2016). Every minute, two people are being enslaved around the world. Two thirds are subjugated in the sex industry and one third into forced labor, mainly in the nonprofit and social enterprise industry dealing with immigrants and victims of human trafficking. Of them, only 1% are being rescued, and of this 1%, the 80% are being re-trafficked due to financial vulnerability. Romanians’ free international mobility encouraged slavery among a wide variety of forms and via black chains; in 2014 875 trafficking cases were recorded and 70% of Romanian immigrants said that they dream to return home (USA Embassy, Romania, 2015). In 2016 148,355 migrants and refugees entered Europe (March 2016). The cumulative arrivals to Greece stands at 144,899. While in 2015 1,046,599 migrants arrived to Europe, Greece received 858,608 of them (Mediterranean Update, IOM, January 2016). SOGTIM’s objective is to provide an experimental pedagogical program for the training of nonprofits and prospective social entrepreneurs in the skills, knowledge and networking needed to augment their chances of success without having them to rely on government handouts and support from donors an aspect which will resultantly lead to a ripple effect of benefitting the more disadvantaged in their communities. It also offers an incubation e-based program that supports nonprofits and prospective social entrepreneurs on a step by step approach in building and growing their ventures. They interact and co-create with peers from the global community that go through the same process. Through SoG-TIM channels and activities they will have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to social investors and exploit the opportunities of collaborating with start-uppers from the for-profit technologically advanced ecosystem. The SOGTIM training platform has been designed based on the results of an extensive research addressed to the European nonprofit and social entrepreneurship sectors. This research helped us to identify the skills, strategies and competences that nonprofits and social entrepreneurs need in order to become innovators and change makers in their areas of operation. The programme elements consist of the: Active Project of the Participants Two SOGTIM handbooks and self-administered exercise books E-learning platform with six E-modules and online courses. 26 Best Practice cases of collaborative non-profits and social enterprises. Action learning sets. A Six month Mentoring Cycle Two face-to-face Workshops in 6 countries Peer to peer support platform on SOGTIM channels SOG-TIM Competition and Award ceremony. The SOGTIM project’s partners are seven organizations from different EU countries: 1. Pedal Consulting s.r.o from Slovakia 2. The Nest Social Cooperative Enterprise from Greece 3. Make A Cube from Italy 4. Eolas S.L. from Spain 5. Universitatea Lucian Blaga Din Sibiu (ULBS) from Romania 6. Spoleczna Akademia Nauk (SAN) from Poland -The Leader Organization is PEDAL Consulting s.r.o. Pedal is private Slovak consultancy specializing in entrepreneurship and business development through all its phases. -The Nest is the Hellenic Centre on Social Entrepreneurship & Social Innovation with official branches in Athens and Alexandroupoli (North Greece). -Make A Cube is s a joint venture between Avanzi (80%) and Make a Change (20%). Avanzi is a leading think tank and consulting firm working on sustainable development issues since its foundation. -EOLAS S.L. is founded by a team of professionals with more than 15 years of experience in idea generation, business development and innovation. -SPOLECZNA AKADEMIA NAUK (University of Social Sciences) is one of the leading private universities in Poland having 20,000 students and over 1,000 academic staff. Based in the city with a long history of textile industry. -Universitatea Lucian Blaga Din Sibiu (ULBS). "Lucian Blaga" is a public institution of higher education in Sibiu. It has in its nine faculties and more distance education centers in different cities. It has a student population of 16,562.