Personalisation and Social Entrepreneurship, a concluding analysis
We report some concluding comments on the European Summer School on Social Economy from Dina Rakin*.
Two years ago I heard about the ESSE Summer School from my dearest colleague. “Since you are curious about the social economy world and you are into questioning so many aspects of it, this school is for you”, she said. And she was right. Simple explanation, maybe too obvious.
First, I am not a practitioner – I don’t own a social enterprise, but I am not a scholar either – I’ve finished my studies. I am an advocator for the development of social economy, mainly social entrepreneurship in Serbia. In Bertinoro I was able to test my approaches, get new ideas and see where to correct my work. I am sure that after this experience I will be able to add perspectives of co-production and personalisation to the ongoing debate of social entrepreneurship in Serbia.
Secondly, I am so curious about people. Any kind of people. People from all over the world. We were more than 20 attendees, from Korea, to US, over Ukraine, Spain and the Balkans. Such diversity of personalities, approaches and knowledge can only make you more aware of the fact that there is no unison approach to an issue, and that it is the context which defines how social policy can be reformed, how new ideas could be introduced. Lecturers from different traditions too, can reaffirm. For example, it is wrong to assume that the concept of Personalisation applied in the UK would be easily replicable to any other context, it is necessary to take into account their political system, political culture and of course their pragmatic mentality.
Lastly, I’ve made new friends. It was inevitable, and priceless. I’m going to meet some of these new friends again at the CIRIEC’s conference in Lisbon.
Being open minded and persistent, supported by people of good will, brought me this great experience. I hope many others will recognise this opportunity and share their experience.
*Dina Rakin is a researcher at the European Movement in Serbia. She took part in the ESSE thanks to a scholarship funded by Euricse.
