The principle of the social business, where a business pours its profits back into the community, is fast growing in popularity both in Scotland and abroad. It is as a means of local development from the ground up, providing training and development opportunities to disadvantaged groups and the communities they live in.
Currently, there exists little to no infrastructure to support the development of social business of this kind across Slovakia, nor in neighbouring EU countries. We teamed up with our sister organisation EPIC Slovakia, Spišský Hrhov and knowledgeable partners from the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Poland to create an accredited educational program in the area of social business for local authorities. Along with this, we made an accessible online database for and about the municipality social business. This project directly benefited the production of learning materials for the dissemination of best practices, the increased qualification levels of our participants, and the realisation of a sustainable, tangible framework for the continued development and support of municipality social businesses.
We gained a great deal of support from Scottish social enterprises in the implementation of this project, allowing international networking opportunities for the exchange of fresh approaches to the social business model.
