On August 25, the Croatian Office for Creativity and Innovation (HUKI) held an interactive lecture on social entrepreneurship for the employees and members of the Sunce.
We bring you interesting information from the lecture, which will be useful if you decide to open a social enterprise in your community.
What is Social entrepreneurship?
Social entrepreneurship in Croatia is a relatively new way of doing business that combines entrepreneurship with social responsibility and the principles of nature and environmental protection.
“Social entrepreneurship takes people, the planet and profit into account when acting, providing innovative solutions to existing social problems. Just because of this, social entrepreneurship often goes hand in hand with social innovation processes that are aimed at improving people’s lives by promoting social changes,” said Kristijan Margetić from the Croatian Office for Creativity and Innovation during the lecture.
The task of a social entrepreneur is to recognize problems in society and find new ways of solving them. In order to achieve social change, it is necessary to influence system change by convincing the entire society to take new steps. So we can say that social entrepreneurs strive to change communities and society entirely.
Social enterprise in Croatia, as such, is not legally defined, but it can be carried out within legal forms of activity such as: trading company, cooperative, trade, association or institution. Although there are no direct incentives for the development of a social enterprise, the development of social entrepreneurship is encouraged by securing funds from various funds and tenders.
That a social enterprise in Croatia can be very successful is shown by the examples of entrepreneurial ideas that we have singled out.
Bistro Punkt – a restaurant in Pula that has successfully integrated people with disabilities into its work. It was founded in 2016 with the aim of employing people with disabilities and their integration into society in the field of catering and agriculture. Today, they have 11 employees, of which almost 70% are disabled or other hard-to-employ people.
Humana Nova – a social cooperative in Čakovec is a social enterprise that promotes the employment of people with disabilities and other socially excluded people by producing and selling high-quality and innovative textile products from ecological and recycled materials. It actively contributes to the sustainable development of the local community, poverty reduction and nature conservation. The cooperative employs 38 people, of which 22 are disabled and 11 are socially excluded.
Green Tools Tech – is a small European startup with a mission to develop and manufacture technology that will support regenerative farmers, organic growers, gardeners, permaculturists and other people who have dedicated their lives to sustainable gardening practices.
In its work, HUKI especially nurtures the fair-share model of social entrepreneurship development among young people on numerous projects and programs for young people. If you want to find out more about how to get involved and gain new knowledge, skills and acquaintances, get information on their website.
Sunce is developing its own social entrepreneurship through the Green Trips service. We have designed and adapted green trips for children of all grades of primary and secondary schools and kindergarten groups in order to provide them with the opportunity to connect and understand nature, to introduce them to the basic system of functioning of natural processes and enable them to enjoy learning through socializing.
For all information about Green Trips, feel free to contact us at [email protected] or at 021 360 779.