Are you tired of waiting for someone else, mainly politicians, to solve the problems that burden you in everyday life? And you want to take action? In doing so, to establish a close relationship with the community?
Then the “SOUP” concept is ideal for you. It is a model that was used a few years ago in Detroit, USA, and is now practiced in almost 200 cities around the world. Soon, Skopje will become part of this network.
What is this about? An event is organized where all locals and those passing by are welcome. A symbolic fee is paid (with us it will be 100 denars) and you come to dinner. At least two and at most four speakers (who will be pre-selected based on the selected applications after the call is announced) will present their ideas on how to change the community. Each speaker has four minutes to present (no help from computers or projectors), followed by four questions from the audience,
After finishing, a vote follows and the one who gets the most votes is the winner and gets all the money from the tickets. During all this, the attendees receive soup, is soup in our case, but more importantly: they socialize, get to know each other, exchange ideas and opinions, we get the social moment that we miss.
Volunteer Center Skopje will organize “Skopje SOUP” as part of the KA2 project “SOUP sharing” within the program “Erasmus +” of the European Commission. The organizer of the project is our partner from Denmark – Passion Udflugt.
The intentions of the project are to integrate the concept of social group financing in other European cities, to explore and prove what benefits community has from having social group financing, to promote entrepreneurship and to create a platform for entrepreneurs to share and developing ideas.
Our goal is to create a community of support, with people donating and voting on a project to be funded. The project financed in this way has already planted seeds in the community and gained interest from potential clients / users to be included in the project outcome. The community will gain awareness of the ideas of local entrepreneurs, and the entrepreneurs themselves will have the opportunity to test it their idea, to see if there is a market for their proposal. At the same time, they will be guided by suggestions on how to improve their initial idea to make it more marketable. We will host workshops on a variety of topics for both entrepreneurs and the community. Our goal is to build a strong independent community that has the ability to rely on it.
Sounds interesting? You can apply with your idea!
Send us a short bio, how you would improve your community. Think of it as your own project, get creative! Applications should be filled on the following link: https://forms.gle/VzMoE5dDUvMoWpDq6
Application deadline: 5.5.2022