The great writer Victor Hugo wrote: “In the world there is nothing more powerful than an idea, the time has come.” Recently, the educational project of the “Social Entrepreneurship: Achieving Social Change at the Bottom” initiative, implemented with the financial support of the European Union, was held in Zhytomyr State Technological University – “Ideas Garage”. The project, implemented with the help of a consortium of civil society organizations in Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, led by the Ukrainian Forum of Philanthropists, not only interested Zhytomyr people. Our event has become one of the most successful in Ukraine!

“Every time we ask what is the” garage “here, says information manager Lesia Yaroshenko. – For the business environment, this is a familiar method of teamwork, brainstorming, which aims to crystallize the idea. In the USA, in the home of Ideas Garage, the garage is not just a “home” for storing and repairing cars. This is the territory of freedom and creativity. Google and Disney, Nirvana rock band, Apple computers, Amazon’s online giant, Mattel toys – all started in garages. We believe that the ideas of social enterprises born in the informal atmosphere of our “garages” will soon become powerful agents of the social economy. ”
Zhytomyr citizen Lyudmila Zolotyuk, participant of the event, explained her interest in the project: “First of all, the garage of ideas attracted me to the social focus. One of the key concepts of the event is social entrepreneurship. You are not when you think about your “comfort zone”. Certainly, this is important, but at the same time it is necessary to go beyond the limits of his comfort and try to dress other people’s shoes: how are those people who are with you, what depends on you, that you can try to change and make the best for others? A similar approach or principle can work in the business sector. Thinking only of profit and looking at people as customers or customers looks more like a barrier to the development and dreaming of changes at home and in the country as a whole. ”
According to Trainer “Ideas Garage”, CIVITTA Business Development Manager Taras Dumenko, the audience has gathered a diverse and well-motivated one who is really interested in social entrepreneurship and is able to work in teams.
Iryna Hladka, the head of the Union of Resettlement “Peace in the Palm” public organization, has a lot of plans in addition to activity, positive perception of the world and a good team: “We have the idea of ​​creating a social enterprise in Zhytomyr, but we do not know the clear mechanism and methods of implementation. Therefore, in order to implement the project, we came to create an action plan “, Irina shared.
The ideas that were born in the Zhytomyr people are diverse and interesting: vocational guidance for young people, work-in-work for schoolchildren, employment of socially vulnerable people, gardening of the city, tailoring for children with disabilities and work for mothers whose children require special care. And it’s likely that the time has come for them to come to life, and the authors of the five most convincing social business plans have been invited to a two-day hackathon, on which ideas grow into a business model.
And that means what will happen next!
Translated by Aliona Matushevich