Social Entrepreneurship in Brandenburg

The site visit of Brandenburg in one of the sixteen federate states (Brandenburg) of Germany. It lies in the northeast of the country covering an area of 29,478 square kilometres and has 2.48 million inhabitants. It´s capital and largest city is Postdam. Brandenburg surrounds but does not include Germany´s capital and city state Berlin. Averaging at population density of 84 inhabitants per square kilometres, Brandenburg´s population density is much lower that German average (230 inhabitants per square kilometres), rendering in the penultimate federal state on that list.

Brandenburg is one of the federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former East and West Germany. Today the state ranks among the regions suffering most from structural weaknesses in the labour market and adverse demographic developments, particularly in the rural and sparsely populated areas that are further away from the metropolitan territory surrounding Berlin.

During our 2-day stay (8-9.6.2017) our German project partner Social Impact Lab Berlin prepared really interesting programme. Participants from Finland, Spain and Slovakia had an opportunity to discuss on state support for social enterpreneurship in Brandenburg with experts from Ministry of Labour Affairs Brandenburg and expert from Research on Society and Space. Practical part of site visit was focused on guided tour through the premises of the producer of organic edible products and discussion with the Managing Director of the Hoffnungstaler Stiftung Lobetal, Mr.Keller.

Promoting employment opportunities for low-skilled, long-term unemployed people  one of the most disadvantaged regions in Brandenburg and all of Germany have been discussed during our meeting with the representatives of jobcenter/public employment service and Agency for Local and Economic Development and Tourisms.

Visiting the education iniciative ”Zuckermarck e.V.” in Wallmow showed us unique example of the community cooperation and collaboration impacted directly on a community life improvement and demographics. Thanks to the activists and vollunteers, community was able to get financial resources from eurofunds and to renovate an old building for kindergarten for children from a whole village.

Very interesting was also a discussion with farmer in Hennigsdorf. She showed us a farm development project aimed at cultivation of the walnuts trees as a part of the support service for young farmers ”Okonauten EG”.