Social Economy Entrepreneurship Development Skills (SEEDS) is a Capacity Building project within the framework of the European Commission’s Erasmus + Programme. SEEDS, brings together 9 organisations, 5 from Europe (Greece, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Romania) and 4 from Latin America (Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina) trying to promote the concept and practice of social economy among the local communities and the NGOs involved. The aim of the project is to contribute to the development of the social economy and social entrepreneurship practice in the non-governmental sector, as an instrument for achieving financial self-sustainability and organizational development. Other SEEDS’s main objectives are the creation of a competence development instrument in the area of social entrepreneurship and project management by creating and testing a fit-all workshop and training modules toolkit; the development of a framework for cross-sectorial sharing of good practices between social entrepreneurship ventures and NGOs. The time frame of the project is May 2015 to October 2016. The project starts with a Kickoff meeting in Europe in May 2015 aiming to establish the roles of each organization in this partnership followed by a toolkit-development training course (TC) in Europe in September 2015. The Latin American participants of the TC will then take part in a job shadowing in the European NGOs. In November, there will be a TC with the focus on toolkit implementation to local realities. This will take place in Latin America followed by a job shadowing where the European participants will get to know the Latin American NGOs ways of working with social economy and entrepreneurship. Then an implementation period follows where workshops utilizing the designed toolkit will take place in the partnering countries. This will take place November to April 2015-2016. Following, the implementation period will consist of two impact TCs with the aim of gathering good practices and exchanging results. These TCs will involve also outside stakeholders that have been recognized during the implementation process, these may be municipalities, labour market representatives or others that have been recognized to have benefited from the toolkit and/or the workshops held locally. These events would be held in Europe and Latin America separately in April and May 2016. After the two Impact TCs there will be a period of collecting the information and finalising the intellectual output. The wrap up of the project will be a final meeting in Europe in October 2016, by which time the finalized output should be presented. The expected outcome of the project is a toolkit of social entrepreneurial skills development for NGOs. The 80% of the budget of the project is planned to be granted by the Erasmus+ program and another 20% will be through co-financement.
Social Economy Entrepreneurship Development Skills (SEEDS) is a Capacity Building project within the framework of the European Commission’s Erasmus + Programme. SEEDS, brings together 9 organisations, 5 from Europe (Greece, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Romania) and 4 from Latin America (Peru, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina) trying to promote the concept and practice of social economy among the local communities and the NGOs involved. The aim of the project is to contribute to the development of the social economy and social entrepreneurship practice in the non-governmental sector, as an instrument for achieving financial self-sustainability and organizational development. Other SEEDS’s main objectives are the creation of a competence development instrument in the area of social entrepreneurship and project management by creating and testing a fit-all workshop and training modules toolkit; the development of a framework for cross-sectorial sharing of good practices between social entrepreneurship ventures and NGOs. The project started with a Kickoff meeting in Florina, Greece in June 2015 aiming to establish the roles of each organization in this partnership followed by a toolkit-development training course (TC) in Genoa, Italy in September 2015. The Latin American participants of the TC took part in a job shadowing in the European NGOs. In December 2015, there was a TC with the focus on toolkit implementation to local realities. This took place in Puebla, Mexico following a job shadowing where the European participants got to know the Latin American NGOs ways of working with social economy and entrepreneurship. Then an implementation period followed where workshops utilizing the designed toolkit took place in the partnering countries between January and April 2016. Following, the implementation period consisted of two impact TCs with the aim of gathering good practices and exchanging results. These TCs involved also outside stakeholders that had been recognized during the implementation process (e.g. municipalities, labor market representatives). These events were held in Alba Iulia, Romania and Corrientes, Argentina. After the two Impact TCs there was a period of collecting information and finalizing the intellectual output. The wrap up of the project was a final meeting in Vano, Finland in August 2016, by which time the finalized output were presented. The outcome of the project is a toolkit of social entrepreneurial skills development for NGOs. Main objectives:●Promote the concept and practice of social economy among the local communities and the NGOs involved in the project●The creation of a competence development instrument in the area of social entrepreneurship and project management by creating and testing a fit-all workshop and training modules toolkit● The development of a framework for cross-sectoral sharing of good practices between social entrepreneurship ventures and NGOsThe project contributes to the alleviation of the following:●Short life span of initiatives developed by the NGO sector - the project tackleS the topic of financial self-sustainability and helps organizations to work towards achieving it by developing social entrepreneurial skills with the long term purpose of giving them enough knowledge and skills as to be able to initiate social entrepreneurial activities●High rate of youth unemployment and youth employed in informal jobs - the project promotes the concept of social entrepreneurship, which strives to bring in employment those with less chances to access the labor market increasing their possibilities to become self employed●Lack of understanding of the concept and practice of social entrepreneurship among NGOs, institutions and general public - the project createS a cross-sectoral communication bridge and cooperation framework in which NGOs, social ventures and local institutions will work together towards mutual understanding.