Creative and entrepreneurial?

Believe that art can be of benefit to your local or artistic community?

Praxis for Creative & Cultural Enterprises

The Social Enterprise Academy is offering a programme in partnership with the Scottish Adult Learning Partnership (SALP) which will start in October. The programme is aimed at people who are involved in stimulating creativity for themselves and others - within a community environment for example - or who are looking to set up a creative, artistic or cultural enterprise organisation.

Why Social Enterprise?

If you are involved in or looking to get involved in the creative and cultural sector with a view to setting up or growing into an organisation that will have social aims, then social enterprise could be for you.

“A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.”

Many arts based organisations such as Out of the Blue have adopted the social enterprise form. It provides many opportunities not usually afforded to creative or cultural enterprise projects, offering a greater chance of financial sustainability and the ability to grow and develop outside the dependency culture determined by the remits of funders.

The Programme

Praxis means linking theory to practice, reflection to action. It is about using your learning to make an impact.

The Praxis programme is designed to enable you to build the skills and confidence required to create, develop and sustain an organisation. You will work to develop your skills as a leader, and in turn experiment with and cultivate your ideas.

The learning process will take place in a group of 10-12 of your peers over a 12 month period. This group, with the added support of your tutor, will provide an array of ideas and experience which will feed your creativity and imagination and take you in directions you may have not previously considered or thought possible.

In addition, through partnership with existing, successful creative enterprises, we will be able to utilise a variety of creative media. This will give you a chance to experiment throughout the developmental process, but will also give you insight into the running of a successful creative enterprise.

What Now?

We are organising a Taster Day for Praxis, to give you a better feel for what the programme will be like. It is being held on the 16th August 2005 (12-4pm) at SALP, 22 Hill Street, Edinburgh (lunch is included).

If you would like to book a place on the Taster Day, or if you have any questions about the Praxis Programme, please contact Barbara Scott on 0131 220 5333, or email barbara@theacademy-ssea.org