The international capacity building seminar “Seeding Social Innovation in Local Communities” took place in the city of Zadar (Croatia) from 24th – 31st of May 2016.
This seminar was the second international activity of the SILC project, and brought together 48 young people, involved in the area of youth work, from 3 different continents (Europe, Asia, Southern America) and 8 different countries – Peru, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, France, Greece and Croatia.
K.A.NE., Social Youth Development organisation was represented in this seminar by 5 volunteers of the Kalamata Youth Centre, Mr Nektarios Malapanis, Ms Kalliopi Charitou, Ms Athina Papakostopoulou, Ms Konstantina Xanthopoulou and Ms Athanasia Tsiama.
The main aim of this seminar was to build and improve capacity of organizations and people involved in the area of youth work. It also aimed to develop creativity, innovation and teamwork capacity of youth workers and their sense of initiative. Furthermore, it was supposed to encourage youth social innovation activities at the community level and to explore the principles of youth entrepreneurship from different countries of the world.
The program of this capacity building seminar was divided into 7 days and each of the days was divided into 4 sessions which lasted for 1.5 hour. During the sessions, participants were provided with theoretical background of social innovation and entrepreneurship, project development, fundraising process and creative use of social and web media. More engaging workshops included simulation games and putting theory into practice – divided into groups, participants needed to create their own small project, present it in front of the board, search for sponsorship and other possible funds and to report it all in the end. In this way, participants passed through basic scheme of any project – from idea to the reporting of the implemented activities.
Due to its international and intercultural character, this seminar was a perfect opportunity for exchange of cultures. All of the countries could present their cultural heritage, national food and beverage, natural beauties and other things their culture and country are famous for during the Intercultural nights. Some participants encountered different cultures from other parts of the world for the first time and they could find out everything they wanted from a first-hand.
After the end of the seminar, a public event was organised at the Zadar Main square named “International Idea Manifestation”.
The fair provided space for participants of the International capacity building seminar SILC to present work of their non-governmental organizations (partners of the SILC project), examples of good practice in area of social innovation, social entrepreneurship and culture of their country to the citizens and tourists in Zadar.
Citizens could ask all they wanted to know about volunteering, funding programs and examples of social innovation projects in Japan, Thailand, Peru, Vietnam, France, Greece, Indonesia and Croatia. They could also see and ask about cultural heritage from partner countries – traditional dances, clothes, customs and food. Everyone wanted to know something. The youngest were fascinated by traditional clothes which they could see only in movies (so far) and a bit older visitors were interested in opportunities for them in partner countries.
This really colorful event was covered by representatives of Croatian media – local and national radio stations and local newspapers.
K.A.NE.’s participants came back full with energy and motivation to create different activities and promote social innovation in our local community.
The project was funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
