Proiect Mozaic

Proiect Mozaic: The mosaic – creativity without limit!

Popesti Leordeni Ilfov, RomaniaPopesti Leordeni; Bucharest, Romania

Year Founded:

2012

Organization type:

hybrid

Project Stage:

Growth

Budget:

$10,000 - $50,000

Website:

http://www.fabricademozaic.ro

Project Summary

Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Social enterprise „Proiect Mozaic” started as an answer to the need of a group of people that lived for a long period in institutional system, some of them even with disabilities and rroma ethnics.To remain innovative on market, we want to develop ourselves by: 1.development of jobs, by new services

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if every house, public building and kindergarden in the word is decorated with an artistic mosaic made by young people from “Proiect Mozaic

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

„Proiect Mozaic” social enterprise started as an answer to the need of a group of young people, in vulnerable situations, who lived for a long period in institutional public system, some of them even with disabilities and rroma ethnics. We started from their desire to have a normal life and a REAL job in a context where there are little opportunities for them in the Romanian workforce market (as they have to face discrimination of all types).

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

Our method is based on 3 pillars: a SELF that assumes the risk, a large-operative partnership and valuing the territorial resources. To remain innovative on market, as we are a real social-business, we intend to develop ourselves, by this project, by2 approaches: 1.development of jobs, by enlarging our activity to new markets through marketing and professional growth of empoyees (partnership with Menatwork, business actor and with NESsT, social business supporter); 2.the extension of our method, in partnership with Ministry of Labor and NGOs partners (“ACUMA” and “Il Carro”). In this project we want to endow our factory with a new machine (multiple automatic profiling machine with 2 heads) so that we can offer a complete service to client

Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

With partners support, after 2 years of activity, the production is increasing by 45 % and the quality of the products has improved, being similar to that of the mosaic imported. The young employees had an extraordinary evolution, passing from the “assisted” to the full rights employee. A young employee, one day stated to he’s colleagues:“For me is for the first time when I have a job for such a long time, and this because you’ve all had trust in me”.In Romania we are the only social enterprise that makes a real production activity (factory type) and for the Ministry of Labor we are a good practice model, so many organizations and personalities came to visit us (State secretary, delegation of EU Parliament, groups of NGOs,ambassadors).

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

The method we applied will have an impact in social integration, in different communities, with similar realities, but were an initiator can replicate points of our method The awareness process, with the involvement of Ministry will make our method known to at least 20 organizations. Collaboration with the 2 NGO’s from Romania and Italy will double the actual number of volunteers (from 6 to 12). Volunteers are important for the professional growth of our employees, their motivation and also for the opening towards a European environment. Marketing, professional training and complete services to clients (in partnership with Menatwork and NESsT) will assure business development and consolidation and thus a long term impact for the young people. As for business-production, with this new equipment we’ll be able to make more models, raise the number of clients and production, in general.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

Our method shows that we have to be in a continuous improvement process, pay attention to feedback and market trends, in order to be competitive for customers’ requirements. By offering a complete and professional service we can encounter new clients, in Romania and in Europe, main points for production growth and, from here, the possibility to long term jobs. We intend to diversify our products, including for example the artistic mosaic and to consolidate our position on the market. We consider important the collaboration with organizations from other countries, being an active EU entity.

Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

For sustainability, we consider strategic the development of complementary and various services, in parallel with the actions for sales growing. For this, starting with 2014 we’ll employ a sales agent and we’ll consolidate cooperation with other organizations for other services. According to the business plan we elaborate, after applying these measures, in 2017 we’ll be fully sustainable; meanwhile we assume factory financing (money and time).

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

In Romania, many times the social and economic efforts had as results the opening of protected shelters, operating more as occupational therapy and putting emphasis on the person’s residual working abilities disregarding the utility or market potential of products resulted from this activity. Instead our factory started on business collaboration and considered not only the beneficiaries’ needs but also real market needs. we are one of the few organizations that work with young people with multiple social problems.

Team

Founding Story

The initiative was born from a meeting between people who say "I", founder, Simona and Luigi, a business man sensitive to social problems, and decided to risk in meeting the need of other people. We didn’t start from a plan, but from the reality where we live. Another important factor was the awareness that education to work is not an “assistance” action, but an investment for our society. The “Aha” moment for the new services for our clients, by using the profiling machine came in a meeting with a client that ordered 1400 m² of mosaic for airport of Tadjkistan and he also needed special mosaic-pieces for a complete work. It was the moment when, as our method keeps showing us, we had to take action and further improve and develop.

Team

At present the management group is formed of 4 people: Administrator, part-time, main shareholder (95%); financial director, part time, volunteer, responsible for cash flow, payments and budget; PR responsible, part time, volunteer, responsible for projects and communication; HR, part time, volunteer, responsible for working program and personnel politics. The team includes also 2 engineers and 11 young people involved in production, part-time.