With the end of the summer, the last important phase of “ISSE -Community Works!” started, that will lead to the closure of the project with the European Seminar on Social and Solidarity Economy on November.

The partnership continued working on the development of ISSE resources during all summer months. Since April and the public launch of the Research and the Portfolio, there have been several developments.

First of all, the work for the preparation of the next resources – the Training Modules and the Virtual Game – have intensified and now, on October, these materials are taking their final shape. The European Seminar, that will take place in St. Etienne (France) and where we will present all the results of the project, has currently undergone its final preparatory phase. More specific updates are coming soon!

Testing a training module activity in Athens September 2016

Let’s not forget though that ISSE is not only international work: the young people we work with and for, as well as the SSE initiatives we aim to support, mainly take place at local level in each of the partners’ country. Therefore, since April and the publication of the first resources, we have been implementing a serious of local activities to disseminate the results so far, test the usability of the completed tools, collect feedback and suggestions for the future work, and set the ground for the exploitation of the final results also outside our own organisations.

Among the remarkable results of these first local dissemination activities, is the fact that the Portfolio of Competences in Social and Solidarity Economy is being integrated as support material for new students in the curriculum of SSE qualification studies at the Jean Monnet university in St. Etienne.

Positive feedback about the Portfolio has also been provided by activists of the SSE field in several countries: this resource can not only help young people to discover their skills, find their place in a team and design new SSE projects, but can also support already established initiativ
es to self-assess their functioning, improve their work on personal and team level, and make their initiatives more sustainable in terms of human resources.

An important local appointment is the upcoming Solidarity Economy Fair of Catalonia in Barcelona (21-23 October), where XES and NEXES will be delivering a workshop on SSE training for young entrepreneurs based on the resources developed during ISSE project.