Monday, April 23, 2012

Entrepreneurship Education Call

First of all, I am now really proud that I know how to write and pronaunciate the word "entrepreneurship" as I did it so often during the past 2 weeks of projectwriting.



Shortly about the Call :

This is the biggest Call I have ever done in the sense of its high level ( it wanted very specific details for the content and budget and extra documents). I was in charge of the content and in the end I am really proud of it as I think it tourned out well.

As there was not so much time to write it I sometimes felt like giving up and not making the effort but my work mentor never spoke of giving up and now I am so happy that She didn´t. It was a great learning experience for me about myself, my workstyle, about projectwriting in general and about cooperation with other Partners.

The inter-cultural part of the project was very useful as I got a real sense what would it feel to work with people, who are from different culture, towards a common goal but in a stressful environment. It thought me patience and realization that to work on international level it takes a lot of time discussing with the partners about do we understand each other and understanding what are the needs of others. It is very hard to guess them , so you need to listen what the Partner is telling you. This is making of good Partnership.

Short Summary of the project :


Develop a mentoring European Handbook and Training for Estonia, Austria, Greece and Latvia. Train 12
trainers in the field of mentoring and sustainable entrepreneurship. Test the developed Handbook and Training at
national level. Train 192 higher education institute educators to become mentors for 1152 female students to
develop entrepreneurial mindset with the focus of gender –sensitivity and sustainable entrepreneurship.
Trainers will help mentors to establish and conduct in total 1152 mentoring relationships during 2 Mentoring
Cycles in 3 years. All the administrative issues will be organised by national staff members and expert advice
and material will be provided by WoMentor network. All phases of projects will be evaluated internationally and
internally. There will be 4 international meetings for sharing experience and good practise and evaluate the
progress of the project. Furthermore, there will be 8 national meetings between trainers and mentors to
monitor mentoring process, reflect on it and evaluate its effectiveness.  

So my SECOND project in EVS (as the first one was to UN Women for a Grant) !





The Balance of Mind and Body

One thing that we have also discussed a lot with my work and personal mentor is that my work is mostly behind the computer- doing research, writing proposals etc. This means I am sitting most of the day in a chair. So we found that it is also very important to still have a balance between Body and Mind. Philosophy in WoMentor is that both are important.

So we disided to take few steps to gain the balance. As most of the volunteers know - there is no funds for that. You do not get money for entering a sport- course so we have to be creative.

At the moment I am doing a Yoga course ( for free as the trainer says he cannot to it in English and so I can be a guest)
I am also doing a Greek Dance course where I was invited as my work- mentors friend ( this is also free for me)
And with my work and personal mentor we do time to time tennis and table tennis by using public places and borrowed equipment.

After now writing a proposal for Entreprenurship Education Call we also did a day in Austrian Welness Spa.
We had attended a Woman´s Day Party before from where we got 2 free entries for one day.

So the hospitaity of Austrian people and the encouragment of my mentors have helped me to make sure I do not forget my body while sharpening my mind!

And I really feel it is something that I look forward every week :)

Picture of me at table tennis!- my second time