Italy and Bulgaria - Exchange of Ideas for Social Entrepreneurship
As part of a social entrepreneurship development program, Karin Dom Foundation hosted a representative of Centro Internazionale delle Culture Ubuntu ETS – Ubuntu – Patrizia Pappalardo from Palermo, Italy. The project partner is the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law (BCNL), which organizes the shadowing program on behalf of Bulgaria.
Ubuntu was founded in 2006 by Patrizia Pappalardo, who is a social worker. The organization runs a kindergarten for children of different nationalities (from immigrant families), works towards social inclusion and childcare, training, culinary and art activities. The kindergarten that Patrizia manages is for children from 6-month to 3-year old, they organize different activities for older children, workshops and other ways of social inclusion, international cooking workshops that involve the families.
At Karin Dom, Patrizia took part in our activities and initiatives, attending therapy sessions and group activities with the children. The Martenitsa campaign of Karin Dom was very interesting for her, as well as the celebration of Baba Marta in our home. Almost all colleagues and services we visited were preparing for the celebration and making orders for their social enterprises. This is a favorite campaign of many organizations, and our Family Shop “Ambassadors of Goodness” was really flooded with orders during this period, our studio was full of volunteers, and many kindergartens, schools, citizens and organizations were making and sending martenitsi for the bazaars we organized.
Our guest was particularly impressed with the Montessori centre in Karin Dom and the environment, which is tailored to Montessori education. She was impressed by the fully adapted and structured environment that allows the children from the two groups “Montessori House” and “Montessori Group” (for children with special needs), to communicate and learn together, engage in music circle and educational activities.
We would like to thank all the colleagues we visited for presenting their organizations, sharing their difficulties and interest in social programs in Italy! We have unique organizations in Varna, a lot has been achieved over the years with a lot of effort and many difficulties overcome.
And something curious – our guest shared that Varna is very much like Palermo, so besides people dedicated to the profession, Varna shines with the beauty of its unique seashore!
We would like to thank Mrs. Chankova, who welcomed us at the Riviera Day Center for adults with disabilities and told us about her work with great passion, shared interesting stories from the establishment of the organization and the road to now. At Akademika VUM – which provides sheltered employment for people who have limited access to the labour market, we were welcomed with impressive organisation and culinary offerings from a team that works with pleasure for its clients. The Social Teahouse told us about their mentoring program, which was very interesting and innovative for our guest, who works with vulnerable groups and youth of different nationalities. Mitko, a mentor from the program, shared how they support young people from problematic social or family backgrounds by giving them the tools to build themselves personally and professionally. Smiles for Ukraine Children’s Center welcomed us with countless children’s smiles. Docova and Docov Foundation offers hourly classes, psychological and emotional support. Mrs. Biyacheva from the Community Center for Children and Families – Varna welcomed us with her whole team. She presented the services for early childhood development and the family centre for children from 0 to 3 years old. The colleagues shared their achievements and many years of work with the Roma community, with whom they have already built trust and work very successfully.
And at the end the children in Karin’ Dom learned how to prepare the traditional Italian pasta, and our guest was impressed by the pie in our country.
As part of the programme, the organisations involved in the shadowing program will attend an international conference on “Building Stronger Ecosystems for Social Enterprises in Europe” in Athens within the framework of the SEHUBS – Co-creating Hubs for Social Enterprises project (BCNL is a partner in the project). The event will stimulate the exchange of information and experience with representatives of social enterprises from Italy, Greece, Poland and Bulgaria, as well as the presentation of different successful models of social entrepreneurship, management and development of social enterprise teams.
As an overall conclusion, the event will draw up joint recommendations for the development of the social entrepreneurship theme at European level (Community policies). In addition, the Bulgarian group will have another opportunity to informally discuss the problems and perspectives of the development of the sector in Bulgaria.
Italy and Bulgaria – exchange of ideas for social entrepreneurship. We are grateful for this opportunity to the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law
We tried to include in the program of our guest as many different social services and entrepreneurs as possible, to introduce her to the community in Varna, which works with different vulnerable groups – children, youth and adults and how creative ideas manage to be implemented despite the difficulties.
The development of the international partnership happened thanks to the newest exchange program (shadowing program) for social enterprises from Italy, Greece, Poland and Bulgaria, with a coordinator for Bulgaria – Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Under the same program, Karin Dom visited a social enterprise in Poland.
Karin Dom is part of the DarPazar community – the online platform that brings together social entrepreneurs in the country and helps them to get their products to more and more people. It also supports social enterprises by exchanging ideas, training and sharing international experiences. Visit the platform and order products with meaning and a cause!