Through the SESSP project we sought to offer high quality learning opportunities to enterprises that want to have a social impact. Concretely, this meant developing and implementing a cross-sectoral, cross-border and intercultural high quality and innovative training program for micro and small businesses that identify themselves as social entrepreneurs as well as aspiring social entrepreneurs and existing start up founders; Creating entrepreneurship opportunities for the unemployed and other vulnerable adults in project countries and transnationally; Encouraging digital transformation by promoting digital entrepreneurship; Enhancing life skills and abilities of men and women of all ages and from all walks of life currently residing in Italy or Cyprus to successfully develop social enterprises.
We applied for this project because as an association based in Malta and working on social entrepreneurship, we are blatantly aware of the legal and support challenges affecting Malta in the realm of social enterprise. When the project was submitted, Malta was one of the few EU countries where social enterprise organizations are not recognized as a legal form. While that has since changed, there still lacks a fully-fledged ecosystem for the support and nurturing of promising social enterprises is yet to be created. Similarly, although Cyprus has a long history and tradition of socially oriented activities, “social enterprise” is a recent phenomenon on the island and the sector is still relatively underdeveloped. Thus, the SESSP project initially stemmed from the needs – identified through the ENISIE Inter-Reg project – of social entrepreneurs to benefit from capacity building in a landscape where there is limited support. This need for support and capacity-building was addressed by the project through various project activities, most notably the development of an e-learning course for (aspiring) social entrepreneurs.