Uniting and empowering Azerbaijan’s media stakeholders for impact: this is the idea behind “Social Entrepreneurship for journalists and bloggers” a training organised by Education HUB and Collaborate for Impact in May.
Following the success of last year’s training, participants from across Azerbaijan’s media landscape convened to learn about marketing, management, storytelling, branding of social businesses and the benchmarks on social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan.
Media stakeholders need the latest information to keep up with the advances of the impact ecosystem; the training achieved this aim – and went even further.
It seemed to inspire some attendees to go beyond merely covering the activities of social entrepreneurs. Natavan Baxshiyeva, journalist at big.az , pointed out the value of inspiring more colleagues to get involved: "We returned from the event with the thought, 'I wish there were more people who aspired to such events and social entrepreneurship, and allocated funds for it.’ With the knowledge I got from the training I would like to educate people in this field, if possible, to engage in this type of entrepreneurship ourselves, if not, to encourage others. I highly recommend my other colleagues to attend this training. I believe that everyone will leave with as good impressions as we did. You will be enlightened; you will meet new people and get new knowledge...”
There were also attendees who left the training with a conviction to engage in their own social entrepreneurship projects, such as Arzu Rovshenli, SMM at APA Media group: “In my future plans, I am planning to start activities related to social entrepreneurship, even to build my own social entrepreneurship business. I knew very little about social entrepreneurship, but after coming to the training, I learned a lot... I told everyone around me about social entrepreneurship and suggested they (my colleagues) research it.”
As covered on the recent episode of Impact People, Azerbaijan’s impact ecosystem is at a point where more awareness and inspiration is crucial; sometimes a lifelong journey as a social entrepreneur starts with understand what social entrepreneurship really is. Trainings like this can help light the way. With more impactful events on the horizon in Azerbaijan, a well-trained and diverse set of media stakeholders is the best hope for coverage that’s both accurate and inspiring.