Basic social entrepreneurial skills
1. Introduction
The first unit is about basic social entrepreneurial skills. This kind of skills will be identified and explained to learners. From the beginning, trainees should be aware of the triple character of a social enterprise of the cultural sector, namely:
It is a social enterprise. This may be interpreted in such a way that it seeks to be generally benificient for society, not be aggressive to accumulate profits, taking care of generating employment, having in mind sustainability, minimising the CO2 footprint, respecting ethics etc. It also means that it is inclusive, non-discriminative, democratic in its structure and decision making as there is no single entrepreneur.
It belongs to the cultural sector. This means that it builds on creativity, aesthetics and talents. Yet, people who have no ambitions in a proper cultural sector may also find their place in a cultural social enterprise, if assigned with more “technical” or simple tasks.
It is an enterprise. This means that it must survive in a competitive market. Social entrepreneurs should be able to make decisions, take risks, undertake strategic planning, sell products or services, interact with the social, administrative and entrepreneurial environment, manage money etc. To start up a social enterprise, it is not enough to be pushed only by negative incentives (e.g. combatting poverty). It is very important to have a vision, a dream and to work hard towards making it true.
More specifically, the unit will deal with the following skills:
Recognizing unjust social issues: social entrepreneurship starts by identifying a social problem.
Identifying business opportunities: identify fundamental issues and how to use capital to address it.
Inspiring change through participation: use skills and expertise to apply change through participation.
Taking direct action: be active, not only use capital to fix a problem.
Public speaking: be able to express your vision through speaking.
Fighting adversity: have a deep commitment to social justice.
Creativity: develop creative solutions to address social problems.
In Unit 1, the learners will be taught on how to develop the mentioned skills.