Meeting was also attended by members of SEAL Supervisory Council: CEO of the social enterprise Sonido Inga Muižniece, CEO of social enterprise Svaigi Elīna Novada, Director of social entrepreneurship initiative Make Room Europe Miks Celmiņš, SEAL Project Manager Regita Zeiļa, Head of RB Café Līva Voroņina and CEO of Association ‘Rūpju bērns’ (Children in need) Ieva Krusta.
President of Latvia Egils Levits expressed his support for further development of social entrepreneurship and underlined that Latvia absolutely needs such social enterprises: ‘Humane societies absolutely need to promote social entrepreneurship. There is no doubt we need to support social entrepreneurship because of political, humanitarian significance and values it represents.’
Director of SEAL Madara Ūlande presented current priorities and challenges in the field of social entrepreneurship, and specifically highlighted the vital role of local governments in addressing social challenges and development of social entrepreneurship. She also pointed out that municipalities can support and cooperate with social enterprises, especially in scope of public procurement initiatives that can serve as a strategic tool for solving social problems and creating social added value.
Meeting took place at the premises of social enterprise RB Cafe, which is one of the best known work integration enterprises in Latvia. Founder of RB Cafe Māris Grāvis stressed that social entrepreneurship is the sustainable solution to the primary challenge faced by Association ‘Rūpju bērns, led by him, in the past 25 years, i.e. the issue of employability of people with disabilities. ‘Together with Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia we have created a favourable environment for development of social entrepreneurship and have changed the attitude of employers towards persons with special needs. The overarching objective of social entrepreneurship is to find innovative ways of fighting the existing numerous stereotypes.’
Other topics of the meeting included Social Enterprise Law and its implementation, availability of funding and investment, diversity of social enterprises, cooperation between large companies and social enterprises and everyday work and challenges of social enterprises.
