Social Ecosystem Leads the Future (SELF)

Social entrepreneurship is a relatively new industry in Latvia, with a little bit more than 170 officially registered social enterprises (limited liability enterprises with a social enterprise status). Around 40% of these enterprises are based outside of capital Riga. Even though the national level support system for social enterprises is in place, regional and local municipalities play an increasingly important role in promoting social entrepreneurship on a regional and local level, creating opportunities for new social enterprises and strengthening existing social enterprises. To look for successful examples of developing social economy ecosystem in other European rural regions, Vidzeme Planning Region together with partners from Cantabria region (Spain), Lombardia region (Italy) and Pomeranian V-Voivodeship (Poland) are implementing Europe’s programme for SMEs (COSME) project Social Ecosystem Leads the Future (SELF).

The aim of the SELF project is to develop a resilient social economy model for the rural environment aimed at transforming regions through the social and solidarity economy. At the end, the project aims to create, consolidate and develop a new and transnational network of regional authorities, experts and entities of social economy sector with similar concerns in order to generate a permanent community in this field as key of a sustainable European social economic system.