Never heard of social entrepreneurship or you know little about it? Well, you might not be the only one as it is a rather new self standing concept promoted in the world of entrepreneurs. But all the initiatives of the young to make the others aware of this possibility are promising.

For example, we started the Changemakers vibe in Bucharest, Romania one year ago and we are happy to have sent our message directly to at least 300 people. This year Carolin, Mona, Anna, Maxim and Thies were awarded a scholarship in Berlin to do a research on social entrepreneurship in Germany and Romania. Not only were we happy to get in contact with them via internet, but we also had the opportunity to meet each other on the 26^th of March. The world is small and even smaller when internet and social networks interfere! These five students from Romania, Russia and Germany form an enthusiastic team with Changemakers spirit! They came to our country especially to meet the social entrepreneurs from here, the beneficiaries of this kind of businesses and to speak with students from Cluj Napoca and Bucharest about how each of us can make a change in our communities.

In Bucharest, they and the Changemakers team spent an interesting and challenging day together with some students from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies who were interested in this matter. We were surprised to learn that in Germany social entrepreneurship is as new to people as it is to us. Moreover, it seems that there are as well enough issues to be solved in their country, although Germany is known as one of the most developed states of the world.

The best part in reunions of people who share the same interests is sharing knowledge, ideas and vision. The ‘theoretical’ aspects of social entrepreneurship would’ve been a burden if they came from a professor reading the slides of a PowerPoint presentation in front of 200 students. But this was not our case as each and every participant in the meeting had the chance to speak their minds out and express what they knew or what their opinions were about social entrepreneurship, social issues, successful entrepreneurs in this field or failures and so on.

And how can you learn the most about something if not by actually putting yourself in the situation you’re studying? Through a role-playing game that Anna and Maxim presented to us we simulated what factors of decision a social entrepreneur has to meet and what his or her chances would be to influence them. Briefly, there was a building offered for free by the city hall of Târgu Idea to one of the three participants in a competition. These were a social entrepreneur who was going to involve disabled people in his business, an investor planning to open a subsidiary of a multinational and an NGO which had in project to open a theatre for the disadvantaged people. They negotiated for about an hour with each of the six members of the jury and with a tight scoring the social entrepreneur managed to obtain the building she needed to start her business.

Lots of interesting things have we learnt out of this experience and, as a promise, we we’ll do our best to ensure the same unforgettable atmosphere during the Changemakers Spring School. Apply today!