Regional Stakeholder Group meeting on 13 May in Mannheim

As we only started with the Regional Stakeholder Group in the second semester, our second Stakeholder Group Meeting took place in the third semester. Around 15 people took part in the meeting (mostly on-site at the MRN building, but some also joined online, due to the distances from the peripheral areas to Mannheim).

The meeting was chaired and moderated by Kristine Clev, SECON project manager at Verband Region Rhein-Neckar, who welcomed the participants and gave an introductory update on the SECON project.

Afterwards, four social economy projects from the MRN were presented by the project managers:    

• Bauernhof statt Altenheim e.V.: an initiative that aims to create a dignified alternative to spending old age in a retirement home through a communal sustainable housing project in rural areas. 
• Landauer Leerstandsinitiative: an initiative that helps to make vacant houses temporarily available for use (e.g. housing). Only operating costs, but no rent, have to be paid for temporary use.       
• Audiopedia Foundation: Audiopedia offers scalable, accessible education through audio-based content that is accessible via mobile devices. This makes education independent of location, which is particularly relevant for women in the countries of the Global South. Audiopedia stands for a world in which every woman has unrestricted access to the knowledge that enables her to take control of her own destiny and make positive changes. The project was developed in the MRN and benefits women in many countries around the world.  
• myBuddy: mybuddy is a social tech start-up founded in Mannheim. Under the motto ‘simply.grow.together’, the project promotes cultural togetherness with the aim of realising the dormant potential for society and the economy. With online and offline offers that are easy to access and fun, the project is aimed primarily at the younger generation.

The project presentations gave rise to lively discussions among the participants, who were all impressed by the diversity, innovative spirit, and personal commitment of the project managers. It was emphasised that concrete examples are extremely important in order to make the concept of social economy with its motivation and complexity visible. 

Finally, Kristine Clev informed the RSG members on the next SECON project´s steps, i.e. the online survey on challenges and needs of Social Economy in the MRN and the focus group discussion to deepen some of the issues addressed in the survey. Besides, the group discussed about the opportunity and chances to realize a social innovation hackathon by taking an example of a pilot action of the Silicon Vilstal.

It was concluded that the action to take place in the rural area is of most interest to the MRN, but needs more time for preparation and thus should be further discussed in the context of the action plan.