RISE

RISE (Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs) is a new name for our project WB6 Lab.

The objective of the project is to address a specific and crucial need in the region in relation to its current context and history: opening new spaces of reconciliation for the youth of the Western Balkans through social entrepreneurship. The project, due to its very regional nature, will tend to increase the number of cross-border interactions around social entrepreneurship during the 3 years of the project and thereafter.

The first specific objective is to enrich the capacity of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Western Balkans region. This specific objective is aimed at local support structures (RISE incubators) who are promoting innovative and social projects and project leaders.

The second specific objective is linked to the very nature of the project: to encourage reconciliation through social entrepreneurship, it is necessary to encourage a favorable context for the development of entrepreneurial projects. Raising awareness of social entrepreneurship in Western Balkan societies is a key element in the development of the project and should generate a dynamic and informed community of young social entrepreneurs.

Project's Website

This project is implemented by RYCO, in partnership with GROUPE SOS Pulse, SEEYN, the Franco-German Youth Office and the Institut Français. It is a three-year project that started on 1 October 2019 and is being implemented across the Western Balkans 6.

Through this project RYCO aims to:

Strengthen the capacity of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Western Balkans by:

- Supporting six local structures that benefit from a tailored capacity building training before creating and operating the program to support social entrepreneurship for young project leaders in the region;

- Helping youth aged 18-35 of the WB6 develop their socially impactful solutions for the development of their communities: young entrepreneurs get individual coaching, networking and mentoring opportunities to transform their ideas into a sustainable business model based on social business principles;

- Organising two cross-border incubation programs: two selected project leaders attend a five-day regional BootCamp and a six-month Regional Incubation program where they benefit from intensive capacity building trainings to bring their project to the next step.

Raise awareness of entrepreneurship among people aged 15 and above, and key actors in the social economy and entrepreneurship in the Western Balkans, by:

- Developing a brand to promote the program and its local structures;

- Promoting regional cooperation through social entrepreneurship among the WB6 youth: the local structures raise awareness about the social entrepreneurship concept and its impact among young people by animating a three-day design thinking workshop;

- Advocating for social entrepreneurship: conducting a study on social entrepreneurship in the region and organizing a regional forum that will serve as a platform for discussion on social entrepreneurship in the region.