SE Forum was invited to present at the second all Ukrainian Forum of Social Entrepreneurs in Kiev last week. It was there we and the audience received the challenge, do you dare to live a day only purchasing products and services from social entrepreneurs?

In Ukraine it looks promising. We started with a morning coffee and had tasty pizza for lunch, with plenty more options on Veterano´s menu. There were workouts from Manivtsi and exploring with the creativity box from Horihovyi Dim. To compliment our afternoon fika we simply had to go for a chocolate from Pan Chocolatier. You could also buy a gift for a friend at Dobroslon or Laska, and sell the stuff you are not using anymore – at Murahy.  By doing all this you support women in crisis, veterans, underprivileged kids, internally displaced people or other people in need in Ukraine.

As a local social entrepreneur said: “Helping is easy. Just do your thing but think from whom you are buying”.

SE Forum presents to Ukrainian social entrepreneurs
Besides the challenge, this dynamic event brought together a big crowd: more than 300 people who are owners of social businesses, supporting organizations and other parties interested in this fast developing concept. They all talked about the power of social entrepreneurship and its ability to transfer weaknesses into strength.

More than 300 participants came to discuss social entrepreneurship development in Ukraine 

Obviously Ukraine is currently faced by a lot of challenges with a complicated economic and political situation. However, at the Forum it was discussed that the breakthrough is possible with innovation and social entrepreneurship. It’s easy to believe in this seeing all the inspiring projects, fantastic teams and already great results.

There might be a lack of regulation and governance for local social entrepreneurs, but for sure there is enough initiative, engagement and responsibility among them. A desire to learn, especially on how to make their good-heart projects financially viable.

Our capacity building programs, the SE Outreach Accelerator, Training of Trainers and Social Business Bootcamp were lively discussed both during the presentation and on the breaks. We can most certainly expect more interest from Ukraine in the coming years.

And since our Executive Director Nicklas Wallberg will be going to Kiev in February again to participate in an International Conference on Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation he said he will gladly accept the challenge to buy products/services for one day just from local social entrepreneurs 🙂

Greetings from snowy Kyiv,
Svitlana