RaiSE interregional meeting in Budapest
IFKA, the Hungarian partner of RaiSE, hosted the second project meeting on the 16 & 17 May 2017.
16 May 2017 (morning) - Steering Committee Meeting
IFKA team (Mária Baracsi, Noémi Koppendorfer and Viktória Harta) welcomed project partners and regional stakeholders in IFKA headquarters (1062 Budapest, Andrássy Street 100).
Robert Bach, RaiSE project coordinator, started the meeting with an official welcome of Scottish Enterprise to the partnership. Afterwards , he went over the main activities of the semester, and focused on the regional mapping, joint survey and needs assessment that each project partner is developing and which will be ready by September 2017. Project partners talked about the status of their studies and highlighted the problems that they are encountering. After this, ERVET proposed tentative dates for the third project meeting in Bologna: 15, 16 and 17 November 2017.
After a coffee break, it was time to talk about one of the main outputs of the exchange of experiences: the Good Practices Guide. Centre for Social Innovation (RaiSE advisory partner) and ACCIÓ (RaiSE lead partner) are working together on developing a methodology for RaiSE Good Practices Guide. Stefan Philipp from ZSI and Paula Santarén, RaiSE project manager, explained together the approach to project partners, as well as the difference between RaiSE own Good Practices Guide and Interreg Policy Learning Platforms.
After this, Juan Luis Aparicio, RaiSE financial manager, explained to project partners how they have to prepare the first reporting period. Besides, Paula Santarén updated the communication strategy and activities to project partners and spoke about day-to-day management.
16 May 2017 (afternoon) - Interregional Thematic Workshop
In the afternoon, IFKA organised the first Interregional Thematic Workshop, entitled "Capacity-building seminar on access to market", a very interesting seminar led by Elemér ESZTER, Founder of Social Impact Investors Association. The moderator facilitated two roundtable discussions between Hungarian experts, project partners and stakeholders: "Building conductive ecosystems for social enterprises (accelerator models)" and "Probono support - market-led cooperations in the region".
When the seminar finished, RaiSE stakeholders formally introduced themselves and focused on how each of them helps social enterprises to be more competitive.
17 May 2017 - Study Visits
RaiSE partnership visited three Hungarian social enterprises:
Charity Donation Shop - http://cseriti.hu/
This social enterprise collects from organisations and private households all kind of used products, like clothing, furniture, household equipment or cultural products. They never pay for the products and sell them in their charity shops for an affordable price. They started in 2010 and currently have 7 shops in the capital. They want to open 20 more shops and are also participating in an accelerator programme to make themselves investment ready. The visit was guided by Gábor Sáhy, President.
Parents House - http://szulokhaza.hu/
Their service is childcare and mental health services for families, like children day care, children play house, advisory services and therapy for families, events and cultural programmes. Their services have social impact with providing inclusion of families and children with disadvantages (disability, special needs, low income of the family, low education of the parents, etc.). The visit was guided by Judit Regós, Managing Director.
Never Give Up! Café - http://nemadomfelkavezo.hu/en/
This is a Café and a community space that also provides a daily menu and catering services. Most of their employees are disabled people. They opened one year ago and do a great job in integrating people into the labour market. The visit was guided by Ármos Lóránt, Communications Associate.
Feelings after the meeting
We want to thank IFKA for the excellent organisation of the event. All project partners and stakeholders enjoyed a fruitful exchange of expertise and agreed on the high quality of the discussions. This partnership is the best partnership ever and now, more convinced than ever, we can say that we RaiSE this project all together!
