REPORT ON SECOND TRAINING “Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change”
REPORT
S.E.E.D. – Social Entrepreneurship Education Development Project
Second Training - “Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change”
Report prepared by: Milijana Stojanovic
Date: 26-30.05.2021
Location: Online via Zoom
Participants: High school students and teachers from “Rade Jovchevski Korchagin”, “Prva Sushachka Hrvatska Gimnazija” and the gymnasium of Lizdeika, three volunteers from ARNO and one from “Go Green”-Belgium. 40+ people coming from 4 different countries
Report Summary
To begin with, the S.E.E.D.- Social Entrepreneurship Education Development Project is a 24-month journey that focuses on inspiring, motivating, educating, and preparing high school students to run a Social Enterprise, come across leadership and sustainability trends, earn knowledge and firsthand experience from real entrepreneurs as well as other professionals in this sector. This project seeks to educate young people who will someday make the biggest and groundbreaking changes to the world and that is the exact reason why entrepreneurship education is of great importance. The second training for this project named “Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change” finished recently and it was held from 26-30 May 2021. Through these sessions the students were introduced to Communication, learned about tools and techniques used in creating the most successful social enterprises and finally, they were encouraged to work not only individually, but rather in a team. The training lasted 5 days filled with creativity, teamwork, focus and brainstorming.
The first day began with a warm welcome for everyone from the first training such as participants, organizers and speakers as well as for everyone new that had freshly joined. Like always, the workshops start with an energizer as a way of waking everybody up, getting to know each other and starting the day in a right scheme. After the introduction, the students went straight to displaying their presentations on each virtual student company. “Rade Jovchevski Korchagin” presented two virtual student companies “InnovaTex&Friends” and “Social Health & Security (SHS)”. Croatia showed a wonderful presentation on the virtual student company “Eat to Meet” from “Prva Sushachka Gimnazija”. And of course, Lithuania presented their virtual student companies “First Grade Student’s SOS” and “Stylish Safety”. For the last session of the day, Irina Janevska, a passionate activist with enormous experience in the social entrepreneurship and non-formal education field who believes that philanthropy is the beginning point in thinking about how the economy can work for people and nature, additionally the Co-founder & President of “ARNO”, Y-PEER Macedonia Focal Point, Global Shaper (Curator 2014) at the World Economic Forum (Global Shapers Skopje Hub), was a speaker and presenter on the topic “Intro to Communication”. Her presentation included “Who is Irina?”-part where she talked about what she does, why she does it and her accomplishments. Continuing with the non-formal education theme, the students brainstormed on the topic of communication through a game of association. During the session, Irina covered the meaning of communication, the basics of the communication process, effective communication strategies and an important communication-related game called “20 seconds of fame”. Lastly, the day was finished by homework which consisted of creating a one-pager.
The second day was started by Aleksandar Atanasov and his presentation on “Tools & Techniques for Media Relations”. Aleksandar Atanasov is an experienced journalist working for the Media Information Agency-MIA. He also supports regional and international educational workshops and believes that the growth of social media directly affects the need for roles in professional reporting which strengthens the media literacy. Moving forward, it was the students’ turn to see how they would organize and simulate a press conference based on their own virtual student companies; in addition they had only 30 minutes to do so and 5 minutes to present it. Each team showed themselves in the best light and it is great to see how professionally these young minds can think. Their conferences fulfilled every given task and through teamwork and co-operation were amazing to follow. Of course, this productive day was finished with homework which was flexible to complete during the day. The task was to watch the presentations, find the keynotes and write a press release.
With an energizer on how the students feel, the third day began… The first speaker of the day was Nikola Vojnov. Nikola is a designer, art director and creative director in an advertising agency. As an experienced creator as he is, he has worked with brands as big as BMW, Toyota, Rover, TAV Airport… He is well known for his concept and idea development, graphic design, product design, advertising campaigns and all in all BRANDING. His presentation stood on the topic of “Brand Development Strategy”, he taught what a brand exactly is and how important it is. The crucial thing he told the students is that nothing is complicated and that in the creative business people follow the rule of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). He displayed a few not so great ideas and what was practically wrong with them and at the end a step by step guide to creating your brand. The second speaker of the day was Milan Stojanov. Milan works in the advertising department in numerous agencies in the Republic of North Macedonia. With an experience of 18+ years he has designed campaign materials, creative concepts, billboards and all of this has led to him giving a presentation on the topic “Goodvertising – Campaigns that care”. His session consisted of what advertising is and furthermore how the advertising campaigns and agencies are created. He continued and finished with a few good examples that are said to be “Goodvertisments” and why they are “Good”. Through lots of visuals, pictures and videos Milan successfully concluded his talk and the third day as well.
David Ristov, Mila Kjurchinska and Andrej Bubevski were the speakers of the fourth day. David Ristov is a 17-year-old student at “Georgi Dimitrov” gymnasium in Skopje. Since 2016 he has been working thoroughly on his YouTube channel, editing and uploading all types of videos. After that he shifted his content to “Fortnite” related videos and later to TikTok related ones which boosted his channel even more. His most viewed video has over 1.2 million views and his most subscribed channel has over 17.5 thousand subscribers. His presentation was focused on his journey on YouTube and the guide to creating a channel. He showed all the tips and tricks, the do’s and don’ts, the pros and cons and whether you could make a living out of this business. On the other hand, Mila is 16-year-old student at SUGS “Nikola Karev”-Skopje and her passion is art, hence she does digital art, drawing on paper, clothes, glass, bottles, she also knits and sews. Mila participates in various school events and has even won numerous prizes; besides art she takes part in Erasmus+ projects, RYCO events and Junior Achievement projects. As a part of her presentation Mila talked about “The power of visuals”. She explained what visuals are, which was connected to the next part of her session…using Canva. Mila is a pro at using this design tool so, by doing her presentation everyone who just learned about Canva got a firsthand experience. Lastly, we have Andrej Bubevski. Andrej is a 17-year-old aspiring photographer, videographer, editor and programmer from Berovo, North Macedonia. With these skills Andrej has gained a lot of clients and has a diverse range of work he does for them, from photoshoots and brand promotions, logo, and website design, to computer and smartphone repairs. His presentation focused on “17 and making money-Skills that pay the bills”. Andrej covered and explained all the topics he is a master of, photography, videography, web design and web development. He showed some of his best work and left the students and teachers impressed. Andrej displayed his finest photographs, portraits and even videos he has done for promotion. He revealed his secrets to this magic work and encouraged everyone to try it! Moving forward, Irina continued her presentation from the first day and did an overview on communication channels and focused on social networks as well. This catching up was connected to that day’s homework-making a campaign brief. The task was closely explained and it was flexible to do during the day.
The fifth day was also the last day; it started with the presentations of the visuals for the virtual student companies. Next up were the presentations of the school campaigns on the topic “What is Social Entrepreneurship?”. After that, each school had to present one successful ex-student; this part was done by the teachers from each school. A short break followed and then the ARNO moderators took over to finish the second training. The last session was focused on what the students and teachers had learned and what is next. Finally, the last step was writing evaluations.
Here are the answers and results!
- What elements of the training would you keep? And tell us what did you like the most :)
“Everything was perfect, the mix of topics, the interaction between students and the trainers, the energizers of course to get us out of our comfort zone, all in all, everything!”
“I liked the most Nikola’s, Milan’s, and Mila’s presentations. They were the most interesting to me. I would keep everything.”
“For sure the songs at the start :) Irina and Shemo are amazing, I like their behavior that makes us (students) more confident and not think that we are just saying some "stupid" childish things, they are very encouraging, and I would absolutely keep the energizers but in person :(.”
“I will reflect back to communication skills and importance of it. Also, the quote that Irina said “Don’t be afraid to change the initial idea and grow from it”. And I will use all the new platforms for visuals we learned about.”
“I like how the coordinators and the speakers encouraged student participation and gave constructive criticism when the students presented. I also very much enjoyed the presentations and thought they were very interesting. :D”
- What would you change? And tell us why
“I would like everyone to be involved in the talking so there could be something where everyone has to say something, because someone may be shy but has a lot to say and just waits to be called out, otherwise will not raise a hand. (From personal experience... haha) when you want opinion just start from the participant list form the top to the bottom :)”
“As much as I did enjoy the sessions, I would prefer if they had been on time and that it hadn't gone overtime every day. I would also prefer if we were assigned less homework because it is the end of the school year, and we are already swamped in assignments and studying for tests.”
“There aren't a lot of things I would change; the main thing I believe everyone would change is the pandemic. Everyone wants to do these trainings in the offline world where they would go from a 100 to a 1000!”
“I would not change anything. It was perfect.”
- Do you have any additional comments for improvement of the entire project? Feel free to write your opinion; it does matter to us, this is one of the ways how we can design the next trainings.
“This project really helped me understand how important it is to start thinking about my future career and how important it is for my career to be at least a little bit connected to the social entrepreneurship world. One day, I hope we will all achieve our dreams, will look back at this project and find out how grateful we should be for the given opportunity.”
“Irina and Shemo are real professionals and I enjoyed everything I could learn from them. It was really cool when Andrej, David and Mila were presenting their work because we could feel a little closer to what they are talking about, if you get me. I'll miss the trainings, interesting presentations and activities. I'm looking forward taking part in the next session!”
“Here’s an idea: after giving homework, we should send it to each other, so anyone can comment on it and reply, that way people feel more confident about their work or know what to change.”
