Europe: Saying no to cut and paste social projects

What skills should the managers of social enterprises have? And what is the best way to acquire them? In Europe there is no single answer to this question. And without one it is impossible to even imagine a social job market, let alone a social career market. So what to do?

Mose (an innovative training model for social enterprises), a European project part of the second phase of the Leonardo da Vinci programme, aims to fill the void. By creating, implementing, verifying and validating an innovative professional training model (called the MOSE Model) for social enterprises. Through this model it will be possible to define and describe the qualities needed at top and middle management level and, even more important, the professional paths that lead to acquiring the needed social finance, social marketing and social communication skills.

The means to reach the objective are twofold: a desk research phase and a field research phase carried out by partners from five European countries. The local authority of Avellino, Italy, who is promoting the initiative, has joined forces with SILabo (a laboratory for the information society that coordinates the project) to bring on board four other Italian organisations: VITA Consulting, ASVI, La Locomotiva social cooperative and the Associazione Diogene. While the European partners are: CIES from Spain, the CooperativeCollege and Leeds Metropolitan University from the UK, Caritas of Danzica from Poland and APOPSI from Greece.

The results? Last spring Mose partners met in Naples to present and discuss their findings and to reflect on what project design means in the European context. VitaEurope was also there: here are the protagonists of the event and the first results of this ambitious European project.