Article from the Hati-Sos project team
RIPESS Europe announces that from the 22nd to the 24th of February 2024, we will be participating in the event “Empowering Social Solidarity through Soft Skills. Regional SSE forum Budapest”, which will take place at the Gòlya Center in Budapest.
This Forum is part of the HATI-SOS project, whose main objective is to support the development of SSE through the implementation of alternative educational approaches, expanding and promoting the offer of educational curricula that include Soft Skills –interpersonal skills– and strengthening cooperation and networking of trainers and activists. According to the experience of previous work based on the internal debates of the organizations and on the information that has been collected from trainers, activists, community leaders, and other participants in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, we carried out an in-depth analysis of the needs of all the possible groups on which we wanted to influence. As a result, it was discovered that there was a strong need to acquire better skills, methods and techniques related to non-violent communication, participatory decision-making, the facilitation and moderation of debates, as well as the organization of large-scale public events, with a specific emphasis on democratic and inclusive methodologies.
With this in mind, the SSE Budapest Forum will be the culminating event of this project and will contribute to the direction of further reflection and understanding of the importance of interpersonal skills, in the world of the Social and Solidarity Economy.
The event, which will take place from the 22nd to the 24th of February, will be focused on sharing knowledge and best practices, strengthening networks, and fostering the growth of the European Social Solidarity Economies ecosystem. We will reflect together on the importance of Soft Skills within the Social and Solidarity Economy, and we will collectively review the different topics we have worked on during the project: Non-violent communication, dealing with conflicts, active listening, distributed leadership, facilitation and moderation and the most important one for us: Sustainable activism and self-care.
In general, the basic idea is over two and a half days, to delve into the core of our HATI project. Discover the diversity of training and tools we’ve developed to support individuals and communities connected to or interested in Social Solidarity Economies.
Moreover, at the Forum, we will also have the opportunity to learn from the best practices of the Visegrad Group (V4) countries and across Europe. Engage in captivating presentations by the RIPESS Europe Network, NGOs, activist groups, and social cooperatives. And of course, explore Hungarian initiatives firsthand.
In short, we consider this opportunity to be very relevant and enriching for Ripess Europe since the soft-skills theme is directly related to the Social and Solidarity Economy and its idea of putting life at the center. Working to build a better world implies deconstructing not only the economic model itself, but also our practices, how we interrelate. In many places, we have heard that the revolution begins in oneself, in trying to understand what personality we want to build, one that recovers values such as honesty, sincerity, companionship, listening, care, and that deconstructs the things that have been imposed on us by the system: competitiveness, lack of transparency, the commodification of our relationships, etc.
Our work must necessarily be oriented in that direction.
Check our Facebook and Instagram to follow the event from February 22 to 24, 2024.
