The Mid-Term Conference of the SEMPRE project took place on 14 September 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia. It was be hosted by the Estonian Evangelical-Lutheran Church and had the title
"Social Innovation and Organisational Change
Challenges and Opportunities for Social Service Providers"
The final programme is available here. Conference documentation and photos will be published here soon!
The presentations are available in our download section.
Conference impressions:
The conference took place in the Estonian National Library and was hosted by the two Estonian SEMPRE partners - the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Foundation for Social Action, together with the Lead Partner of SEMPRE - the Diaconie of Schleswig-Holstein.
Estonian Archbishop Urmas Viilma (left) and the Head of the Diaconie of Schleswig-Holstein, Heiko Naß (right), welcomed the participants.
Malin Lindberg, Associate Professor at Lulea Technical University in Sweden, provided an impulse presentation about organisational capacities for social innovation in rural areas. Henri Lehtsaar introduced his social enterprise "Sõbralt Sõbrale" and shared experience in building up a functioning social enterprise with the partners.
Each conference participant received a stress ball that was produced in a micro project initiated by the Estonian partners. The partners showed a film about the micro project:
Martina Sievertsen (left) of the Academy of Econonomics Schleswig-Holstein and Ulrika Häggström (right) of Novia University of Applied Sciences presented two further micro projects that are going on right now in Germany and Finland (for more information please visit the blogs of our local networks in Nordfriesland/Germany and Ostrobothnia/Finnland).
In between the sessions the participants were invited to share their views and opinions using a life polling system. Asked about the future of social services in rural areas the participants were more optimistic than one might have expected: 61% of participants think that the situation will be better or much better in 20 years compared to now. 72% of the respondent think that people are more considerate of each other and help each other more in rural areas than in cities.
The conference guests discussed how to develop organisations toward empowerment in a world café with group tables moderates by SEMPRE partners. The results which were presented to the plenary were a valuable input for the "roadmap for end-user involvement in organisations" that the SEMPRE project is developing.
The conference participants from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland used the opportunity to get to know each other and create new networks.
Rait Kuuse, Deputy Secretary General on Social Policy in the Ministry of Social Affairs of the Republic of Estonia reflected on the conference day and the SEMPRE project from the viewpoint of a policymaker. At the end of the day, Doris Scheer, coordinator of the SEMPRE project closed the conference with an outlook on what's still coming in the SEMPRE project.
We would like to thank our speakers, panelists and moderators as well as guests for participating and making the conference a success!
All photos (c) Urmas Roos
