Non-formal education is important as a key component in increasing competitiveness in labour market today, that recognised young, motivated participants of one-day workshop on entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship held in Sisak on the 17 December 2016 in premises of the Sisak Tourist board.

Local Democracy Agency Sisak organised the workshop as a part of the “RAISE – Raising the Advantages of Youth through Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship” project, funded by the EU Erasmus Plus program. The main purpose of the workshop was to provide young people basic information on entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, help them in creating, realising and implementing their own ideas and encouraging development of entrepreneurial competencies.

The LDA Sisak volunteers, Antonela Gajdek and Doris Brala, and Zvonimir Rajković from Sisak Tourist Board, facilitated the workshop, who gained their skills and knowledge on the training for trainers for educating youth on entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship hold in Albania in earlier in November.

Considering the main project objective transferring useful knowledge and opportunities of translating youngsters’ entrepreneurship idea into practice, 13 young participants of the workshop had a chance to learn the most important concepts related to social entrepreneurship and competences needed to be an entrepreneur, find out about marketing importance and necessarily of active citizenship and involvement in local community life.

Through interactive and group work, young participants developed their own start-up plan and got familiar with good practices in Croatia. There were a lot of good business ideas and conclusion is that Sisak is missing school of writing and public speaking, online store that collects domestic products and promote and distribute them to end-users and school for starting own business. The participants find this interactive workshop as very useful, especially for youngsters from Sisak, a town with great potential to achieve big results and new opportunities

“I’m very satisfied with this workshop. Now I know how to be a good entrepreneur.” – Simbad Hadžić

“Big thumbs-up to young workshop leaders. Excellent organisation and implementation; the atmosphere was pleasant, motivating and enabling.” – Martina Jambrović

“Today, I learned how social enterprises operate. Good presentations gave me a lot of information about entrepreneurship.” – Nikola Kovačić

This workshop is just the first step in raising young people awareness on active work in local community, on importance of new initiatives and on implementation of ideas and projects. Starting small businesses is only a part of active involvement in local life. To change our environment, fist we have to change ourselves. Similar workshops are to continue in following period and the next one will be conducted in Sisak Technical School.