Skip to main content
European Vocational Skills Week
News announcement30 August 2019Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion

Learn! Do! Apply!

biserka_marcinko.png

I am a teacher of economics subject group at the High School of Economics and Tourism in Karlovac. The reason for participating in projects and personal education was to gain experience in other countries and to apply it in Karlovac and Karlovac County. The aim of these activities is to encourage our youth to become entrepreneurs and to exploit the existing potentials of our city and county.

As a coordinator, I have participated in two student mobility projects and in a forum within transnational collaboration activities. As part of the ''Learn! Do! Apply!'' project, I traveled with my students to Madrid, where I was introduced to the establishment, financing, and functioning of social enterprises and ethical banks. Through the work of their social enterprises, I have become aware of their role in entrepreneurship development and in employing a socially sensitive group of citizens, and of the importance of volunteering for both volunteers and their beneficiaries. During my visit to ethical banks, I learned about the way they are started and financed and about their offer of inexpensive credits to small entrepreneurs.

While participating in the Transnational Cooperation Activity held in Liverpool on the "Social Entrepreneurship, Youth and Vocational Education Forum: Towards Collaborative Practice 2018" topic, I exchanged experiences with other participants, visited some social enterprises and became acquainted with their work.

As part of the ''Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Agriculture'' project, I traveled to Malta with my students. As I visited my students during their student practice in the national park, family farms and shops, I became acquainted with marketing activities in tourism, the connection between farms and hotels, the purchase of agricultural products and the protection of local farmers.

After these activities, through lectures, workshops and through the media, my students and I strive to spark interest among primary school students for vocational occupations and entrepreneurship and to stimulate the development of family farms and social enterprises. I have gotten into contact with other schools, arranged cooperation, encouraged our students to volunteer, and we are starting a student collective that will cooperate with a social enterprise soon to be established in Karlovac County.

Biserka Marčinko, Teacher, Croatia

Details

Involvements
Teacher/trainer