Coming together to discuss the potential development scenarios and communication aspects of social innovation in Latvia is an important prerequisite for sustainable development of this topic locally. People in Latvia are still quite unaware of this term, and moving forward it is necessary to involve various stakeholders to have a unified vision for future possibilities. Which is why on afternoon of 12th September SIC organized a meeting with experts to spark a discussion on these topics. As a result, a common vision draft was created, but even more importantly – the participants of this event had a chance and time to come together and see each other’s perspective.

Firstly, the experts were presented the outcomes of the research about awareness of Latvian society about social innovations. And then hours of discussing and working with various creative methods followed, to ensure that different opinions and potential aspects are heard. Even though the list of suggestions was much broader, the most important conclusion came to the necessity for a platform that would give opportunity for stakeholders from all sectors (public, private, nonformal and academic) to discuss and look for solutions jointly – without the restraints of hierarchy or other existing hurdles among them. More elaborate conclusions from this meeting are available HERE (in Latvian).

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

With the start of this year we also start our work with the project “Creation of strategy of change and raising the communication capacity of Social Innovation Centre”, funded by the “NGO Fund” of Social Integration Foundation of Latvia. During this project we will try to find out the understanding of Latvian society about social innovation in Latvia, as well as the most effective means in informing them about this topic. Basing on the gained results, SIC will improve activities, communication and the publicly available brand from various aspects. The duration of the project is planned until October 31st, 2022.

Raising the capacity for SIC as an organization will allow strengthening the role of an opinion leader, as well as the public image in the field of social innovation, and moving towards other strategically significant goals (potentially, becoming one of the founders for the competence centre for social impact in Latvia). With this project we will have an impact on the growth of the organization, and strengthen its role in the NGO sector as well as broader.

Read more about this project HERE.

This article was created with the financial support of Society Integration Foundation from the means of the national budget of Latvia within project “Creation of strategy of change and raising the communication capacity of Social Innovation Centre”, contract No. 2022.LV/NVOF/MAC/049/36. Only Social Innovation Centre can be held responsible for the content of the article.