Exploring Social Entrepreneurship in Practice
Visit to the Italian Social Farm
On Day 4 of the LTTA Mobility, the group travelled to Udine, and to the social farm operated on a social enterprise concept.
Igor, the project lead, provided an overview of the services and support the site provides, the history of the farm and its extensive range of collaboration and partners they link with locally to provide comprehensive wrap around support initiative, supporting groups with additional needs and those experiencing disadvantage.
The group witnessed the operation at first hand, including the 4 Bee Hives, the Community Organic Garden, the Vintage Vineyard, which again is developed on an organic basis using traditional approaches and the beautiful donkeys, who provide therapy for victims of trauma, having come from traumatic settings before being rescued by the sanctuary.
We not only collected the ingredients for our own lunch, we enjoyed the cooking skills of the volunteers and the farms selection of organic wines.
A truly fantastic and sustainable project !
Social entrepreneurship as a basis is an innovation engine that motivates people to leave familiar patterns of thinking behind. Six partner organizations from Germany, Italy, Romania, Greece, Ireland and Slovakia, including the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, are first developing an innovation manual that will serve as a guide for the learning modules. Best practices show how existing social enterprises proceed. For Germany, for example, an institution is presented that works with mentally ill people and helps them to develop their entrepreneurial potential.
The training modules and an online platform are then developed and tested. The e-learning courses give learners hands-on experience of running a sustainable business in the digital age. The high-quality and innovative learning offers support the identification and development of ideas, the preparation of entrepreneurial activities and legal frameworks as well as the training of personal skills. In the process, each project partner also develops country-specific modules that meet local legal and social conditions. The course modules are then piloted with 20 young entrepreneurs in each of the six countries. From these, six champions will be selected in each partner country. All participants receive a training certificate.
