International Training Course “Sustainopreneurship – Think Global, Act Local”, April 2014, Bitola, Mazedonia

In April 2014 the training course “Sustainopreneurship – Think global, act local”took place
in Bitola, Macedonia. It was organized by the association 615 that is based Bitola with the
aim to gather youth workers, staff from youth centers as well as youth representatives from
business incubators to gain new knowledge and skills in the fields of sustainable
development, entrepreneurship education and the empowerment of youth and to develop
on strategies in fostering creative, independent and non-traditional ways of thinking and
acting in their local environment. In the following Isabel Jensen will share her impressions
from the TC:

First of all, I want to thank the organizers from association 615 again for providing this
great chance to learn and network about sustainability and entrepreneuship. Secondly I
want to thank CGE in Erfurt for choosing me as a participant to represent Germany during
the training course.

From my personal background working in NGOs and business departments concerned
with Corporate Social Responsibility I had already a picture of sustainability in my head.!
This training course really broadened my mind about the whole concept of sustainability. It
was very interesting to find out about all the social, political and environmental aspects
involved in sustainable concepts. Even though I discovered that Germany is quite
advanced in some of these fields such as environmental aspects, I see a lot of possibilities
for improvement here as well. We were not only given theory about sustainability during
the training course, but we could apply the theory on a project we developed on a topic of
our choice.

In many of the NGOs I have worked at, objectives are not clearly set and projects are not!
evaluated afterwards. During the development of our own projects in several smaller steps
we learned how to clearly set objectives and indicators which can be used during
evaluation phases.It was a very good exercise and I hope I can convince my co-workers in
future projects to set clear objectives and evaluate the outcomes of projects.

As I mentioned before, the concept of corporate social responsibility in Germany is often!
connected to donations for charity projects. I see much more clearly now how companies
can be sustainable in many more aspects than just donations. We got a good overview of
the general concept of sustainability; I feel the urge to dive much deeper into the topic
though, especially into social businesses. There was unfortunately not the time during the
training to get more insight into specific topics. It showed me clearly though, that the
connection of social profit and businesses is the field I want to discover and might even
precede my career in.

Entrepreneurship was the second focus of the training course. As I am working as a
freelancer since the beginning of this year I already possess some of the characteristics an
entrepreneur needs. It was very inspiring to meet other young professionals who had the
courage to already set up their own NGOs and businesses. We got the chance to visit a
business incubator in Bitola who told us clearly what an entrepreneur needs to have and
what made other entrepreneurs fail in the past.

Concerning unemployment, I see entrepreneurship as a great tool, to develop new skills,
start working in the field you desire or even set up the business you always dreamt about.
It motivated me, but talking to other entrepreneurs I am also quite aware of the challenges.
The disadvantages of being an entrepreneur might not have been clearly enough during
the training course. Everything about it sounded positive which I think in reality is not true. !
During the sustainable project we set up ourselves, I could feel the passion and power
though, an entrepreneur might feel realizing his own project.

All in all, the training course was a very inspiring, intense learning experience which I do
not want to miss. I am looking forward to learn much more about and from
sustainopreneurs and maybe in the near future even become one myself. Thank you for
the opportunity to participate.