Winning ideas from the first generation of the RISE program for social entrepreneurs announced

On March 4, ARNO held the event for announcement of the winning ideas of the first generation of the RISE program for social entrepreneurs. The expert jury selected the ideas: “Skopje goes Zero Waste” social business for selling products from small domestic producers, without or with reusable packaging, within which retirees or people who are redundant will be hired ” Football Frame “- a digital platform aimed at promoting the beauties of the football game, while promoting positive social values ​​and combating the lack of physical activity in everyday life.

For the winning ideas, the RISE program provides financial support in the amount of 2500 Euro and additional mentoring and expert support within the incubation phase. Thanks to the faith in social businesses and strong collaborations and partnerships, for the two Macedonian winning teams ARNO provided additional awards: media promotion from the portal faktor.mk, mentoring support from the IT company akrinum.com, eco-branding of the store awarded by Pakomak, and support for the digital platform through an advertising banner, also awarded by Pakomak.

The selection of the best ideas was made by the expert jury composed of: Barbara Sadovska – Eptisa project “Support to social enterprises”, Marinela Shumanjski- SEEYN (RISE Consortium), Hristijan Stanojevi–faktor.mk, Ilina Veljanovska- akrinum.com – Edvardo Sofeski-Chamber for small businesses, Branislav Markovski – Fund for Innovation and Technological Development, Filip Ivanovski-Pakomak, Aleksandar Bogoevski – City of Skopje, Albert Hani – Office for Regional Youth Cooperation (RYKO). The announcement of the winners took place through an online event (see here :)) with a creative presentation of the magic of social entrepreneurship by the eco-magician Kristian Shopov.

In the first generation of young social entrepreneurs in our country, a total of 8 teams participated in a program to develop their skills, knowledge and motivation. The teams developed their ideas for social businesses that have a positive impact on nature and the community, promote collaboration and have the potential for regional development. All of the Macedonian teams participated in 5 trainings, 3 events with motivational speakers, held 24 meetings with the ARNO team, had the help of experts (see below in the gallery) who in 72 expert sessions helped them develop ideas, and had full leadership from their mentors: Andrijana Papic Mancheva, Mihail Stevcev, Olga Rajcic, Antonio Jovanovski, Josko Ivanovski, Elena Hadzi Pecova, Stefan Chichevaliev, Vesna Sokolovska.

The RISE project was developed and monitored by a consortium consisting of the Regional Office for Youth Cooperation (RYCO), the SOS Pulse GROUP, the South East Europe Youth Network (SEEYN), the French Institute and the Franco-German Youth Office (OFALE) and six local incubators – ARNO, Balkan Green Foundation, Nesto vise, Smart Kolektiv, IEC Tehnopolis and Yunus Social Business. The RISE project is co-financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Regional Office for Youth Cooperation (RYCO). ARNO is proud to have been selected as a local incubator and national structure implementing the 3-year project together with credible partners from the region.

“We are grateful to ARNO for participating in the program that offered us full support for designing something that was just an idea, and it became more and more realistic with each training passed. In addition to the shop and building awareness of products without or with reusable packaging, we want to organize workshops for sewing, knitting, repairing things. We have a lot of plans and ideas that we have built thanks to our perfect mentor Andrijana Papic Mancheva and experts in the field who helped us “- said Marija Arsovska from the team of Skopje goes Zero Waste.

“We are Jane, Marko and Aleksandar. Jane – a doctor and a  football player, Marko -a  professor of sports and physical activity in a high school in Skopje, football coach and football player, and Aleksandar also a football coach and a  football player. We are passionate football fans, and we want to use football as a tool for change in the society; and to talk about topics that are more important than football: health, education, gender equality, etc. – said Jane from Football Frame