Halftime for the pilot in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

The first half of the pilot phase in Germany is already over, which means it is time for the midterm workshop! In this regard, the German project partners conducted two workshop sessions together with selected pilot participants and external stakeholders.

The workshop teams examined the pilot program from two different perspectives: the organizational (internal) and the participant’s (external) perspective.

During the first part, participants were reviewing their experiences and encountered challenges. Next to giving positive feedback on the program and fast communication offers, it became clear that thanks to the pilot program, many different parties at a local level deal with the topic of social entrepreneurship and raise awareness.

Moreover, the heterogeneity of pilot participants contributes to many different experiences and learning opportunities. However, one challenge it brings along is the different level of knowledge participants have prior to the trainings, which makes the need-based training method even more important.

The second part of the workshop aimed to gather recommendations for the further development of the German pilot program, based on the lessons learnt. 

One recommendation for the future is to adapt the addressing of participants in order to generate more applications at the beginning. Another lesson learnt is to further intensify the involvement of regional partners in the program and to find a better balance between obligatory and voluntary offers. Overall, the pilot midterm workshop was a complete success with mutual learning opportunities from partners’ , stakeholders’ and participants’ point of view.