Over 40 social enterprise stakeholders from Malta, Ireland and Estonia participated in a successful online workshop hosted by Cork City Council (Ireland) recently, focused on Fostering Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Post-Covid19. This event took place as part of the FOSO-POCO project, a project co-funded by the European Union’s COSME programme, led by Malta Enterprise, with Cork City Council (Ireland) and Tartu City Government (Estonia) as partners.
Presentations on the day included a review of the Irish and Cork social enterprise ecosystems and various case-studies from Rethink Ireland, Metiheal Mara, Cork Deaf Enterprises and Northside for Business. The key note address was given by Mikel Irujo Amezaga, Minister for Economic and Business Development in the Regional Government of Navarre in Spain and Rapporteur for the European Committee of the Regions. His presentation focused on the renowned role that social enterprises play in Navarre, Northern Spain.
Workshop organiser Mr Donal Guerin from the Economic Development Section of Cork City Council stated “This workshop brought together practitioners in the field of social enterprise from right across the EU. We learned that we face many of the same challenges arising from Covid-19, but there was agreement that social enterprises will play a major role in leading the recovery”.
The FOSO-POCO project focuses on creating better understanding of the conditions for social entrepreneurship by directly involving relevant actors and stakeholders in efforts to identify and address existing gaps in the supports for social enterprises.
On the 25th of August the next online workshop will focus on supporting social enterprises to pilot, pitch and internationalise their product or service and will be organised by Tartu City Government (Estonia) and a third online workshop will be organised by Malta Enterprise which will focus on social enterprise policy, at the end of September. Both events are free of charge.
Malta Enterprise encourages local stakeholders to share their views, ideas and concerns on local social entrepreneurship by joining the FOSO POCO project stakeholder meetings. For further information about this project, the online workshops and stakeholder meetings kindly contact [email protected].
