Joint Venture Multiplier Event in Bucharest, Romania

Last November 29th 2022, our partner Casa Ioana organized a multiplier event at its Bareceni Centre in Bucharest, Romania.

This accommodation centre provides support to women and children confronted with domestic abuse and family homelessness. It was chosen as the event’s venue because it provided a friendly and yet professional environment, ideal for encouraging maximum interaction between participants and the Centre’s residents.

Participants

• Business world: Affinity Transport Solutions, Oracle, The Cloth Workshop
• Public bodies: The Romanian National Agency for Occupation and Employment
• NGOs: ADRA, the Salvation Army, Caritas, Concordia, Sensiblu, ASIS, the Proof of Life Association, Solwodi, the Lighthouse Association, and the ANAIS Association
• Media: Euronews Romania

Activities and materials

Attendees were greeted by Casa Ioana’s staff team, offered refreshments, and introduced to other event visitors. Besides learning about Casa Ioana and its work with vulnerable groups, participants were able to get to know each other ahead of the presentations.

Casa Ioana’s founder and president, Ian Tilling MBE, formally welcomed everybody before presenting the Joint Venture project – business between socially excluded people and NGOs. The presentation included a description of the venture, its objectives and activities, and its intellectual outputs. The presentation included a question and answer session, followed by a refreshment break, where participants were encouraged to network with the other attendees.

The second part of the event was a presentation on the training methodology by Casa Ioana’s training coordinator, Nicoleta Dinu. This introduction focussed on the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities, the selection of entrepreneurs and NGOs, and the incubation programme. The subsequent question and answer period was followed by an active discussion on the challenges involved in this intellectual output and how these tests were resolved. This part of the event was followed by further networking among participants.

The participants gave very positive feedback on the organisation and content of the Multiplier Event. Notably, the question and answer sessions were considered helpful because attendees were able to find out more about certain topics, and the open discussion and networking encouraged engagement with all participants.