Kick-off Meeting. Nicosia. Cyprus
December 13th to 14th 2013
Educating Entrepreneurs in Traditional Crafts and Arts
The Kick-off Meeting of the Grundtvig Programme “Educating Entrepreneurs in Traditional Crafts and Arts” - CY-GRU-MULPART-2013 took place in Nicosia, Cyprus on the 13-14 of December 2013. The meeting was organized by the Cypriot partner, the Cyprus Research Institute of Social Sciences (CRIoSS) and the other partners of the project, NGO Menas sau (Lithuania), Andırın Halk Eğitimi Merkezi (Turkey), Centro de Educación de Personas Adultas Maestro Martín Cisneros (Spain) and Associazione Europeando (Italy), attended the meeting.
On the first day of the Kickoff Meeting, a partners’ meeting was held where each organization presented itself to the other partners and the next steps for the project were discussed and designed. A redistribution of tasks took place among the partners and the dates of the next meetings were set. Furthermore, a workshop was held on “Innovation and Entrepreneurship: How do you successfully bring a business idea from the desk to the market”. An evaluation of the meeting and workshop followed. During the meeting there was fruitful and creative discussion on several aspects of the project. The first day ended with dinner at a traditional Cypriot tavern.
On the second day of the meeting, a tour of old Nicosia was organized where the partners had the chance to visit a crafts and arts fair and, a recent initiative in Cyprus, a women’s bazaar where women have organized themselves to sell their handcrafts. Firstly, the partners visited the arts and crafts fair where the craftsmen and craftswomen of the shops presented their work to the partners and talked on how they had set up their small business. Then, a questionnaire that was developed during the partners’ meeting was conducted to them in relevance to the scopes of the project of which the results are going to be transcripted, analyzed and send to the other partners. After their visit to the fair, they were toured in the old, within-the-walls, city of Nicosia, they visited the Folk Art Museum and, after that, the women’s bazaar. The end of the meeting took place at a restaurant in the old city.
The Project focuses on adult learning, especially for unemployed people. Through the project, participants can discover/develop a hobby (handcrafts), regain self - confidence and creative thinking and learn how to start their own small business. Entrepreneurship and cultural education are considered and used in the context of the project as a tool for better understanding between people and their surroundings.
Craftpreneurs Objectives
- Help partners’ communities to be more autonomous and sustainable by involving people in activities related to entrepreneurship;
- Support the development of European wide standards for evaluating formal and informal education;
- Provide opportunities for both active and inactive participation, education and training of all ages, sexes and nationalities.
More specifically, the concrete objectives of the project are:
- increasing the adults' motivation to learn and acquire new skills;
- establishing educational partnerships between the organisations of adults;
- strengthening the activities of adults in several aspects of life;
- encouraging the sharing of the acquired skills with others;
- promoting entrepreneurship and intercultural dialogue; and
- increasing the activity and involvement of adults in starting own business.
The above objectives are to be achieved through the exchange of information between partner organizations, through exchanges of staff and through common seminars in partner institutions. This partnership will bring together various stakeholders involved in business education. Furthermore, the participants will learn about best practices from the other regions, will be involved in several workshops and exchange their knowledge, experience and ideas.
