1225 high school students and 107 Romanian teachers participated during the 2015-2016 school year, within the European project for social entrepreneurship education, called Social Enterprise 360 (SE360). As part of this project, they identified various solutions for solving some of the problems of local communities, such as: a greenhouse that provides young people with intellectual disabilities with jobs, a games room which aims to help teenagers with problems of social integration, an organic underground greenhouse, a device-bracelet for people dependent on insulin or an application for emergency situations.
SE360 brings social entrepreneurship in the education process, combining both informal and formal methods and emphasising the evaluation component. In addition, besides the local involvement in the activities implemented by teachers and volunteers from the business community, the students have been exposed to international collaborations, everything being possible thanks to funding of project through the Erasmus+, the EU program for education, training, youth and sport .
Social Enterprise 360 was declared a model of best practice in Erasmus+, participants from Romania and from other European partner countries (Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Spain) benefited from free access to learning materials, entrepreneurial practical experience and the opportunity to develop complementary skills, participating in webinars with social entrepreneurs and in a competition where they proposed social entrepreneurship solutions for their communities.
The competition motivated students to transform their knowledge gained form the classroom activities in ideas that can change the problems in their communities, creating new jobs, social cohesion and reducing inequalities.
Path to Knowledge team from the National College of Informatics - Piatra Neamt won the national finals of SE360, with an interactive educational platform, through which students can participate in various live lectures, and then share their acquired knowledge with other young people, assuming the role of "teachers". The platform will have an educational function, but it also will facilitate communication between teenagers.
“Participating in the competition was a cohezive element for members of Path To Knowledge Team. Due to the Social Enterprise 360 progrram, we have learned how to work better as a team, how to respect certain deadlines, but also how to develop our business. In addition, each member has tested his personal capacities, managed to complete the tasks ... What we liked most about this competition was the direct feedback and support on the business idea!” - confessed Andrei Linguraru, member of the winning team from national level.
Path to Knowledge team will represent Romania at the European final, which will gather on the 9th of June students from Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Serbia and Spain.
The project results will be analyzed during the Social Enterprise 360 – European Summit, on 30th of June in Bucharest, in order to share models of best practices, success stories of students and future stages of the project.
