Vobrousek and the Love for Bees...

© vobrousek.cz

While being a part of the project 'Roadmap of Social Enterprises' (with financial support of Visegrad Fund) that aims to create a digital map of social enterprises in 8 countries, namely Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro, I currently have this great possibility to look for and meet some inspiring examples of social entrepreneurs in Czech Republic. And one of them is Natálie Pivrncová, a young entrepreneur and the producer of environmentally and bees-friendly beeswax wraps 'Vobrousek' - a reusable and long-lasting alternative to plastic and/or aluminium food packaging. I had the chance to hear the inspiring story of Natálie during the Erasmus+ international training course 'Sustainable ImPACT' organised by the NGO Youth Progress Czech Republic gathering young and active people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Armenia, Portugal and Czech Republic. Moreover, as a group we had this amazing opportunity to participate in a practical workshop and make beeswax wraps ourselves...

Social Enterprises in Belgrade: Fighting Stigmas and Filling the Gaps of Dysfunctional Social Support Systems...

In the beginning of April I was a part of an international group of active people (NGO activists, highschool students, future social entrepreneurs) from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Czech Republic that met in Belgrade for a study visit to get a peek into the scene of social enterprises in Serbia. In just one day we had a chance to visit and speak to three different social entrepreneurs each having their strong and noble missions to change things in their communities and especially for their target groups. We spoke to the representatives of association 'Naša Kuća', and NGOs 'Atina' and 'Center for Youth Integration' that run socially entrepreneurial entities. Since the law on social enterprises in Serbia came to being literally just now (yet with no tax discounts as such) these entities take a form of limited liability companies and other business forms. Despite all sorts of limitations and challenges we evidenced that the world is still full of good people that work hard and find ways to make this world a better place...

Exploring the Scene - Social Enterprises in Czech Republic

© iED

Czech Republic has a very versatile and encouraging amount of socially entrepreneurial initiatives as we found out during our initial search in the depths of Internet. That's where we started our search. It was especially exciting for my fellow-explorer that discovered a completely new field of businesses doing things differently with society and the environment in mind.

Even though Czech laws regarding social enterprises are rather flexible at the moment (not strictly defined), it hasn't stopped many entrepreneurial minds to come up with very inspiring, innovative, environmentally friendly and inclusive business initiatives. These initiatives take different legal forms - work integration enterprises, associations, cooperatives, companies with limited liability, not-for-profit organisations (further referred to as NPOs) etc (Frankova, 2019). There are also different support mechanisms in place such as grants and loans, as well as a few mainstream banks, innovation centres and business incubators that help with subsidies, intellectual capital and/or visibility. Most of the social enterprises and initiatives that we found have a social media presence (Facebook and Instagram), beside physical websites (with e-shops allowing to purchase their products and/or services).