On Saturday, 15th March, Belle and co., working alongside the Bertha Centre team and the Student Development Unit at the University of Cape Town, designed and delivered part 1 or 3 workshops focused on social entrepreneurship for 100 matriculants from various schools across South Africa.The second and third workshop will take place in July and August 2025 (blogs to follow).
The learners, who are part of an extra curriculum Saturday mathematics and science programme at the UCT, requested additional professional and personal development training focused on entrepreneurial skills for their future careers. SDU approached the Bertha Centre for this inaugural training, who in turn entrusted Belle and Co. to design and deliver it.
The design thinking approach
Belle and co. used the design thinking framework to structure the three part series. The workshops are designed to guide the learners from problem identification to solution generation, encouraging creative thinking through an entrepreneurial mindset.
The Workshop 1 session included case studies of successful local social enterprises, practical group work on specific design challenges, as well as student presentations. This hands on approach helped learners identify social problems and build confidence in articulating their ideas to the class.
Workshop 1 learning objectives
The first workshop, titled Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship, focused on four core learning objectives:
- Learning objective 1: Introducing the concept of social entrepreneurship.
- Learning objective 2: Understanding the difference between traditional business models and social enterprises.
- Learning objective 3: Encouraging creative thinking to solve social issues through business mechanisms.
- Learning objective 4: Developing skills to identify local social problems and opportunities.
Feedback and next steps
At the conclusion of the first session, each student wrote a feedback letter and placed it in a dedicated post box. The facilitation team will use these reflections to assess the session and make adjustments for the upcoming workshops in the series.
Explore the images to see more:
