Study visit to Portugal “Social Economy 3.0”

In the period November 7-11, the study visit “Social Economy 3.0” took place in Portugal. Irina Janevska participated in the visit as a representative from ARNO, together with colleagues from the macedonian organizations: Vizia Bitola, Innova Lab Bitola, Dobra Zemja – organic food cooperative from Skopje, Liberal Alternative Institute – LAI from Tetovo and Ekovita from Negotino. Within this visit, the participants had the opportunity to visit good practices, hear new approaches, see new examples from the social economy.

“Beautiful country and very warm people. I had a feeling as if we knew each other from before – both the participants and the trainers Santosh and Filipe. The agenda took us to different places, we visited an institution like PIOM (it leads the part with legislation on social entrepreneurship), we visited municipalities with good practices for young people, we visited hubs (in one hub there was a whole room with Lego blocks for prototyping), we saw different initiatives for inclusion (through hip hop for example), we ate food from a great catering from a social enterprise (served very cool, in a full eco format), we heard about projects that are great illustrations of what social innovation means in practice (the city of Porto together with an NGO and a university for almost a decade  has been matching pensioners with students and thus solving the problem of high rents and loneliness). We have something to learn from each other, I think that ARNO has already identified partners for cooperation in the future”, said Irina from ARNO.

The visit took place thanks to the bilateral agreement on strategic cooperation between the National Agency for European Educational Programs and Mobility of the Republic of North Macedonia and the Portuguese National Agency for Erasmus + Youth in Action.