The Project "Students for Social Changes" was developed in partnership with British Council and Eurasia Partnership Foundation as one of the components of Social Entrepreneurship initiative.

The Project Purpose was promotion of SE concept in youth and active involvement of business school students in social entrepreneurship as one of the components of the overall SE project.

Project planned to achieve this goal through arranging competitions between students for the best social entrepreneurial solutions and linking them with active NGOs with operating SEs. This approach facilitated practical involvement of students with active Georgian SEs and contributed in awareness raising and promotion of SE concept among students.

The first phase of the project was implemented during the period of January – April, 2012. During the first phase of the project following activities were fulfilled:

Printing of the promotional materials

Small brochures about social entrepreneurship, with cases of Georgian and international examples of successful SEs was published. Brochure contained specific information about youth involvement in SE development, and different opportunities. In addition, informational materials about Project event was printed. All these materials were distributed among students during the seminars.

Cycle of activities at 4 universities: Caucasian Business School, Robakidze University, Georgian American University and Tbilisi State University.

At each university was conducted cycle of similar activities:

Informational Seminars.

The first activity of the project was one-day seminar will be conducted by the CSRDG for students interested to with SE. The main purpose of this activity was to rise interest about the SE concept  and the project among students. Invited guest speakers from successful Georgian SEs were also invited, They share to students the their experience. During the seminar detailed information about the following steps of the project was explained. Total 4 seminars were conducted.

Online registration of teams

After the seminars 16 students from each university were selected for the following phases. They form teams of 4 students for competition. Special web-portal (www.gosocialenterprise.ge) dedicated to the project was designed and launched by Eurasia Partnership Foundation. All teams were registered on this web-portal.

Bus-tours to SEs

4 Bus-tours were organized for participant students to visit Georgian SEs. Two tours were in Tbilisi, one in Javakheti and one in Kakhety. Students had opportunity to see on spot sucsessfull enterprises, get answers on the questions, meet beneficiaries of organizations. Total 9 SEs hosted students. These SEs are: "Ekkana"; "Istorialy"; "Anika"; "Arbo"; Coalition of Independent life; Cafe "Qedeli"; Gulgula; Union of Democrat women of Javakheti; Agricultural Consultancy services. Each group meet 3 or 4 social enterprises. One of the host SE during the trips was selected to be the challenge for student teams during the inter University competition.

Competition

Students had about 10 days to think about the best solutions of the challenge for their tasks.

Following organizations were selected as challengers:

“Arbo” – for Georgian – American University;
“Qedeli” – for Caucasian Business School;
“Anika” – for Robakhidze University;
“Union of Democrat women of Javakheti” – for Tbilisi State University.

Each team prepare the project of business solution of the challenge. Projects were evaluated by jury consisting with representatives from the University, CSRDG, EPF, business sector and target SE.
Competitions were arranged at the Universities. Each team prepare presentations and answer the questions of jury. All information will be uploaded on the web-site www.gosocialenterprise.ge face-book of the project. Special prizes were presented to winner teams.

Winner teams will participate in final Competition between Universities, which will be arranged by the end of may.