Social Entrepreneurship Week, held from October 2-9, concluded with the international social entrepreneurship meeting “Youth and Education, agents of social change”, held this morning at the Villaviciosa de Odón Campus. The event was attended by social entrepreneurs, experts and institutional representatives who agreed on the need for youth and education for generating social change in society from a global perspective.
Participants included representatives from top-level entities and institutions such as the Minister for Employment and Social Security, CEPYME, the Youth Institute, the Autonomous Community of Madrid, PSOE, the Spanish Senate and many more. Some of these representatives gave noteworthy contributions, including Carmen Casero, Director General for Self-employment, Social Economy and Corporate Social Responsibility at the Ministry of Employment and Social Security, who acknowledged that “we need young people to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)”; something “we are very aware of at Employment.”
Guests at the event also has the chance to listen to a presentation by Francisco Polo, social entrepreneur, 2011 JES Award winner and federal secretary for entrepreneurship, science and innovation of the PSOE political party. He encouraged young entrepreneurs to be “more social” and undertake their project “from the heart” to end major causes pending solution, such as poverty or homophobia.
The meeting was held at the same times as the Laureate Global Fellows program, held for the first time in Spain, which year on year awards young social entrepreneurs from around the world. This edition included 20 young people from 17 countries, including Spanish representative Cristina Balbás, 2016 JES Award winner for her project Escuelab. The event was brought to an end by Bill Reese, CEO of the International Youth Foundation, an entity that collaborates with Laureate Global Fellows, who presented the ‘Global Youth Wellbeing Index’. After the meeting, the 20 winning entrepreneurs were the protagonists of “Stories of Impact”, where they shared the motivation and experiences that led them to launch their initiatives with students and professors from the Universidad Europea.