Changemakers. The journey of a thousand miles in a single week.

Wednesday and Thursday

This blog post is meant to present some things about the Changemakers Spring School. Time flied while we were learning together about social entrepreneurship. There were some people who did not attend all trainings during the whole program. Who knows, maybe we have made something wrong (if this is the case, Changemakers truly apologize) or maybe the Changemakers Spring School just didn’t fit them. However, a strong team of 20 participants formed while attending our school. They all have different personalities, likes or pastimes, but at the same time all of them have a common feature: the desire to change something around them.

Wednesday

The first training was held by Andreea Floroiu from Euro26, which was actually a more formal introduction in the subject of social entrepreneurship. The participants talked about themselves, some teams have been made and they found out what were the differences between management, CSR, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. The session ended in lively debates and discussions. In the evening we stayed in the typical Romanian atmosphere at “Carul cu bere”, where the people indulged themselves in the famous “papanasi”, drank beer and listened to traditional Romanian songs played at traditional instruments.

Thursday

Thursday was to be a difficult – emotionally speaking – day for both the organisers and the participants. We have visited Motivation.SRL and saw exactly how a social enterprise looks, inside out. The kind people from Motivation really went to great lengths in order to make us take advantage of everything there was to be seen. We talked to Anca Beudean, Elena Filip and other key employees at Motivation who presented us the main features of their work and who patiently answered to all our questions. Then, we have visited the social homes that Motivation provides for 40 children with mental or physical disabilities, the therapeutic centre and the recreational one, where every Changemaker had the chance to paint next to some special children from Motivation.

What did the Changemakers feel afterwards? See below:

“This day was very active and we had the chance to learn through real life experiences and incredible examples”

„I felt both powerless and highly motivated for the future”

„The trip to Motivation was very cognitive, educative, I can say that I am another person now”

„I am more open minded thanks to Motivation visit”

„I apreciate the Motivation emplyees and hope to finance sometime in the future their foundation”

„I realised the fact that people that get more satisfaction from helping others rather than having lots of money actually exist”

„Visiting Motivation was really inspiring. There I saw a different life style that made me think about my true mission in life”

„The trip to Motivation was a life – changing experience. It opened my eyes”

In the afternoon Changemakers discussed about the SWOT analysis of a social enterprise, while the evening found us dancing in “El Comandante”.

For pictures, you can visit ASER’s Facebook profile

-To be continued-