Programme & action: ERASMUS+, Key Action 1: Youth Exchange
Venue: Bodo village, Timisoara, Romania
Dates: 16-25 August 2016
Participants: Petra Javorková, Dana Levíčková, Nikola Miksová, Natália Mydlová, Hana Fikrová
Group Leader: Tomáš Král
Please read the info-pack a daily programme
Participating countries: Croatia, Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy, Macedonia
Hosting organisation: The Romanian Institute for Youth Development
Project report:
Czech team, which included five girls and one boy, left Brno in morning hours on 16th of August. We were heading to the south-west part of Romania – small village Bodo not far from one of the main cities in Romania, Timisoara. It took about twelve hours by train to get to the final destination but at least we had plenty of time to get to know each other.
Groups from six different countries participated in the program – Romania, Italy, Macedonia, Croatia, Estonia and Czech Republic. We stayed in nice summer camp and shared rooms with participants from other countries so we discussed and shared thoughts even in our free time. As it has been mention above the project took place in small village Bodo. The head organizer Mirela explained why they chose this location. This region faces a lot of social issues for example poverty, gender stereotypes, unemployment or integration of hungarian minority. So we could actually see why projects on this concrete topic are so needed. We could talk to locals and also some of us helped them with their daily duties.
Fisrt two days we did teambuilding activities and we were closely explained what Social Entrepreneurship really means. At the end of every day participants were divided into six reflection groups so every one had opportunity to make a positive or negative comment on any kind of activity. Each team also presented their traditions, culture and cuisine during International nights. It was very interesting to hear, see, experience, taste and simply find out more about different lifestyles from foreign countries.
During fourth day of the project organizers took us on trip to Timisoara. In morning we visited social bussiness – local cafe close to the city centre. We had unique chance to talk to owners of the bussiness. So we learned about social entreprises, what difficulties they have to face and how to make social bussiness profitable. In the afternoon we had free time to explore city, then we met again to enjoy amazing dinner in Timisoara city centre.
Main activity and I would also say the headline of the project was planned on last two days. We had to come up with our own ideas of social entreprise and after choosing top seven ideas we were divided into teams and further evolve the bussiness plan. It was kind of simulation of a real bussiness so we had to include target customers, marketing strategy, cost&income, profit, SWAT analysis and of course the social aspects. We had to manage our time to work on this activity and every one put lot of efforf into making their project as real as possible. Last day each team presented their bussiness plan in front of others so teams immediately receive feedback from other participant and organizers. Only thing we would recommend to organizes is to invite someone who is experienced in social entrepreneurship so we could discussed about our plans with professional.
At the and as a group leader from czech team I would like to thank to organizers for creating family atmosphere, providing us with everything we asked for and also for interesting activities they put together. We learned a lot about social aspects of entrepreneurship, how important it is for community and to solve social issues as well as „burn“ bridges between different social groups. In Bodo we gained education, made friends, widen our horizonts and left knowing not everything is about money.
Tomáš Král
