Teaching Social Business, I and II edition
Teaching Social Business, I and II edition: Promoting Social Business in Secondary schools of the Emilia Romagna region, I and II ed.
(2014-2016) finished project.
The project aims at promoting and spreading the model of Social Business developed by professor M. Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, among Secondary school students of Emilia Romagna. Through theory and practice that praise self-entrepreneurship, the project stimulates the students’ creative process of solving social problems within the Community, the development of personal skills and the analysis of innovative business models. This way, efforts are made towards preventing, overcoming and transforming the status of passiveness, exclusion and marginalization expressed with the acronym “NEET generation” (i.e. Not in Education, Employment or Training),
through specific training courses, capable of providing a complex view of reality, considering, other than business aspects per se, also social, psychological, relational and cultural implications. The relevance of the proposition is underlined by the philosophy it is founded on, a paradigm that follows alternative models to the “homo oeconomicus”; these models call for the direct participation of young people as active and aware citizens, operators of change.
The training experience.
The training experience was born as an extracurricular proposal and it encourages voluntary student participation, however, at the request of teachers, the course can be included in the regular study curriculum.
The didactic method is experiential, it includes active lessons and practical exercises (project work, surveys, and field surveys) by providing participants with both conceptual space for processing and operational tools needed to enhance their personal resources and capabilities.
At the end of the training there is a final competition: the Social Business event. Students are invited to submit Social Business projects developed during the training course. The best ideas will be evaluated and awarded by a committee of experts.
Thanks to the support of the Regional School Office, the training experience has been extended to all the schools in the region, involving over two years more than 700 students and 18 school institutions.
The training experience was included in the Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro program under the “La Buona Scuola” (107/2015) reform.
Supervisor: Prof. Luisa Brunori
Tutors: Chiara Bleve, Giorgia Bonaga, Luigi De Donno, Carmen Di Benedetto, Sofia Pesci, Sonia Ronsini