The rural communities must be able to meet their basic needs, such as clean water, health, education and employment and paraprofessionals already exist in villages and their wisdom, traditional knowledge and practical skills are not identified, mobilized or applied. Through Erasmus + program Village Social Enterprise -learning material guidance and networking (ViSEnet) the international team composed of experts and professors from the academia and rural communities representatives, aims to develop various skills in rural communities to fit their needs for development of social enterprises.
The data was collected during the first phase of the VISEnet Erasmus + project for social entrepreneurship in rural communities.
During August -November 2019, 64 people from rural communities in Estonia, Finland, Scotland and Romania participated in local workshops focused on "Methods of community activation and participation in rural areas" divided into five subjects of analysis to stimulate the development of social enterprises in their communities.
The main priorities of local rural communities resulting from the local workshops are related to mapping local opportunities which have potential to be turned into business opportunities with a high impact on the social context of each particular community, and to identifying rural human, infrastructure and natural assets. Moreover, the facilitator teams in all the countries-partners concluded that paying particular attention to community activation and participation in rural areas helps foster local social entrepreneurship in many ways. In conclusion, the content about community activation and participation developed by the VISEnet team may be a means to strengthen the communities (Estonia), to foster the potential of the community (Finland), encourage local activation and initiative (Romania) and enhance continuation of local development processes (Scotland).
Read the whole press release here and more from ViSEnet-project`s own website www.visenet.net