Launched
\njust a couple of months ago in Romania the notions of social entrepreneurship
\nand social economy were well received, all the more so as partially they
\noverlapped an older activity, very familiar with the Romanians: the small craft
\ncooperatives. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Social entrepreneurship introduces the idea of
\nsocial need, which can be satisfied through an economic activity, which doesn’t
\nmake a profit in money. In other words, social enterprises aren’t interested in
\nmaking money but rather in developing human relations and skills. Romania
\nalready has small workshops where underprivileged citizens, such as former
\nhomeless people, single unemployed mothers, or former victims of human
\ntrafficking, are employed and learning a trade. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Trades may vary from sewing and baking to mending
\nIT equipment. The employees get the minimum wages but they put their lives back
\non track again. This is the immaterial gain and the material one is enough for
\nthe company’s sustainability. So from the viewpoint of mutual assistance, the
\nactivities of social enterprises and NGOs are overlapping. In fact, many social
\nentrepreneurs have started as NGO managers, such as Raluca Chisu, coordinator
\nof the Kinetobebe Association. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Raluca
\nChisu: We are an NGO with
\n40 employees and a management and coordination team. Our resources come from
\ntwo directions: we have an economic resource, which means that we are providing
\nservices to the market and get paid for these services and a social resource,
\nso to say, which means that we are getting money from donations and from
\nsponsors. This is what Kinetobebe Association, which I am coordinating, does.
\nWe have three centers of pediatric recovery providing services in this field,
\nof the medical recovery of children. We have 150 patients a day and a team of
\ntherapists working every day, and that means we must have the financial resources
\nto cover these expenses. The social resource, from donations and sponsors is
\nnot very reliable, so we must cover our expenses from some economic activities.
\nHowever, these activities aren’t supposed to make a profit and if they do, this
\nprofit must be reinvested in the social activity. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Any social enterprise must
\nsatisfy a social need and, and Raluca Chisu created this enterprise to respond
\nto the children’s medical needs. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Raluca
\nChi\u0219u: The fact that 25% of
\nthe children born are in need of recovery is already a prerequisite. The state
\ncomes up with solutions, but cannot cover the need. For instance, in the case
\nof motor recovery, which involves physical and cognitive recovery, the state
\ncovers only 5% of what children need. A child with a neurological condition
\nneeds 365 days of recovery and the state facilities can provide only 10 days,
\ntwo hours a day. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
It is only natural, Raluca
\nChi\u0219u says, that social enterprises or NGOs take over some of this burden and
\nhelp the state with these activities. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The main condition is that the
\nsocial need should not be exploited to make money. Another social need seems to
\nbe the idea of providing support for the talented young people, enabling them
\nto make a name for themselves in the cultural life. This is actually the
\npurpose of the association coordinated by musician Doina Saliu, organizer of
\nmusical festivals and master courses devoted to the young people, which have
\nprofessional musicians as invitees. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Doina
\nSaliu: I have created an online festival together with my
\ncolleagues. We didn’t have other solution than to resort to donations to cover
\nmy expenses in this period. Of course I have two volunteers, an accountant and
\nan IT expert, but this cannot last forever, you know. Artists are also
\nvolunteering for this project, but this also cannot go on forever. Recently I
\nhave offered contracts to my colleague contributors, because they volunteer,
\nbut like I said, this activity cannot go on like that forever. I am speaking of
\nartists of international repute here.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
This is an example where
\ncharity is corroborated with economic activities fostering the careers of young
\nartists, who would remain unknown without such support. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Besides this mixture of
\nentrepreneurship and charity – a mixture which sometimes leads to ambiguities -
\nsocial entrepreneurship also involves contact with the authorities. The main purpose
\nof this interaction is to promote public policies, which must be beneficial to
\nthe domain in which the social enterprise is activating. Here is Raluca Chisu
\nat the microphone again. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Raluca
\nChi\u0219u: We, as NGOs or
\nassociations, very much rely on public policies. And most of the time we should
\ninitiate these public policies. Mrs. Saliu, for instance, should come up with a
\npublic policy for the support of the young artists. We have been lobbying the
\nministries for quite some time now for various public policies.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nlaw on social entrepreneurship was promulgated in Romania in 2016. The first
\nstatistics on Social enterprises were also published that year. So, at the end
\nof 2015, this sector hired over 136 thousand people, including cooperatives,
\nmutual assistance funds for employees or pensioners, mutual societies,
\nassociations, foundations and other legal social economy organisations.
\nFurthermore, over 3 million Romanian citizens have registered as members or
\ndirect beneficiaries of these entities. Romania’s social economy figures have
\nallegedly increased of late. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(bill) <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The notions of social entrepreneurship and social economy have been well received in Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":143740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[43461,39073,43840,34791],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-ngo","tag-organisation","tag-social"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n