Munich, Germany: March 2017
The Goethe Institut and Strascheg Centre for Entrepreneurship (Munich University) have partnered to create a consortium to help build Cultural Entrepreneurship Hubs at Goethe Institut Greece, Indonesia and South Africa. The project is financed by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
Belle and co. has been invited to be part of this consortium along with other local consultants from the three countries identified.
Read more about the project here.
Iasi, Romania: February, 2017
Belle and Co. Associate, Nobantu Nhantsi, attended the Dive into Social Entrepreneurship Research Seminar hosted by Eurodemos, project partner based in Iasi, Romania. She presented Belle and Co.’s preliminary research findings.
For 2 months leading up to the Research Seminar, each participating country had to conduct a local research study to better understand the Social Entrepreneurship realities on the ground by interviewing and surveying entrepreneurs and youth. Each participating country then sent a representative or two, to present their findings in a seminar.
Skopje, Macedonia: December, 2016
“Dive in Social Entrepreneurship” is a capacity building project financed by the EU under the Erasmus + programme, Capacity building in the field of youth, and it will be implemented within a period of 17 months and it will include partners coming from following countries: Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Brazil, South Africa and Costa Rica.
The project consists of capacity building activities (kick off seminar and local researches) and mobility activities (seminar, training courses, study visit and job shadowing). The activities will be based on variety of methods and techniques of non-formal education and they will support active role of the participants in the project activities. The activities will target various groups including young people and youth leaders, youth workers, program managers and project coordinators, representatives of institutions and local authorities.
2017 Activity plan:
FEB, Romania: Research Seminar on country comparative social entrepreneurship ecosystems
MARCH, Greece: Training on Social Entrepreneurship I
MAY, Turkey: Training on Social Entrepreneurship II
JUNE, Bulgaria: Study tour of Social Enterprises
SEPT, South Africa: Job Shadow of Social Enterprises
DEC, Macedonia: M& E and Close Off off
The key aim of the project is to provide a way for active development of human capital, practical encouragement of social entrepreneurial activities and establishment of effective pathways to youth employment in strategic cooperation with different stakeholders.
The project kickoff meeting was held in Macedonia in December 2016.
New York, USA: August/September, 2016
After completing the Mandela Washington Fellowship academic track in July, Belle and co. was lucky enough to be offered an additional 6 week professional development opportunity with Echoing Green in New York City.
Echoing Green identifies tomorrow’s transformational leaders today. Through its Fellowships and other innovative leadership initiatives, Echoing Green spots emerging leaders and invests deeply in their success to accelerate their impact. They have been funding social entrepreneurship and innovation globally for 30 years. Read more here.
Belle and co.worked closely with the fellowship team, in particular working on linking the fund with African based community leaders and entrepreneurs. Various outreach partnerships were forged between African institutions and Echoing Green.
Belle and Co. also got the chance to pitch its business value proposition to the whole team.
Washington, USA: August 2017
Belisa Rodrigues, Belle and Co. Director, was awarded one of the 1000 coveted fellowship positions (amongst 50 0000 applications) to be part of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) or Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) class of 2016.
After 6 weeks in the USA studying at Dartmouth college with 25 fellow Africans, all 1000 fellows convene at the end of the fellowship for the Presidential Summit in Washington to meet Obama.
Not everyone gets a chance to shake the hand of POTUS, but Belle and Co. did.
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA: June/July/August
Belisa Rodrigues, Belle and Co. Director, was awarded one of the 1000 coveted fellowship positions to be part of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) or Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) class of 2016.
Each year fellows are divided into groups of 25 cohort and attached to a USA University. In this case, Miss Rodrigues was seconded to Dartmouth College along with 25 other fellows representing 17 African countries.
Core part of the educational experience was learning about Design Thinking with Prof. Robbie in the Thayer Engineering Department; as well as Design-Driven Entrepreneurship with Prof. Norwady; and Leadership Development at the Rockerfeller Leadership Centre.
The human-centred design process was mostly experiential, whereby teams were formed, business ideas developed and delivery of real-time pitches to investors who awarded grants of $25 000 to the best business idea/pitch.
Tools and methods used included: Empathy Maps, Stakeholder Maps, Poster Concepts, Pitch Decks, Personas, Field Research, prototyping etc
Dunoon, Cape Town: June, 2016
Belle and Co. conducted a bi-lingual (isiXhosa / English), 3-day Arts Appreciation training with artists from the Dunoon Community. The training included exploring career pathways in the music industry, cultural policy, arts fundraising as well as sage theatre industry advice from invited guest speaker, Sticks Mdidimba (Manager, Artscape Theatre). The workshop also included a 1 day cultural bus tour in the Cape Town CBD, meeting art industry stakeholders such as SAE Institute and iKapa Dance Company. Co-Facilitators: Ayanda Mpono, Belisa Rodrigues
Mowbray Cape Town: April, 2016
Belle and Co. held its first public engagement with Mowbray residents to explore possible avenues of re-imagining Mowbray through place-making and co-creation. Residents shared previous visioning exercises such as “Magic Mowbray” and the GSCID’s “Mowbray as Learning District” concept. RMCA, Open Streets, Old Mowbray Cottages, CPF, GSCID and others, were in attendance. Thank you goes to Enock Nkomo for the use of his business premises on Mowbray Main Road.
Langa, Cape Town: July 2016
Belle and co. called for donations of laptops on the Belle and co. Facebook site, and received 2 donations from the public. These two laptops were handed over to the Langa Arts Association. Much appreciation to all involved!
