– one interior designer and decorator from Matera with her personal brand “Simona Cuscianna”, specialised in freehand painted decorations on walls and baby interior design, collaborating with Baby Interior Design based in Milan;
– one Italian teacher of a social enterprise involved in a pilot and innovative project named Wonder Grottole aiming at engaging people and tourists from all over the world to rehabilitate the historic centre of Grottole in Basilicata. By creating a new community, the project has captured the attention of Airbnb in 2019 to promote the Italian Sabbatical project that has opened the doors of Grottole to the world.
– two young sisters, a user experience designer and a trainer, who established the Cozinha nomade in Trani (Puglia region) that is a “social eating” experimental space where foreign and local “food nomads” (as they call them) are supported, trained and incubated in a stimulating environment to become new professionals within the food sector.
– one president and co-founder of Associazione all’opera that is a no-profit association based in Matera supporting and training young people in order to promote and contribute to social development through the planning and implementation of interventions of social inclusion.
The main results achieved by this first Artists Circles piloting sessions can be definitely summarised though the key words stated by the participants: Awareness, Self-efficacy, Prioritising, Pragmatism, Strategy, Vision.
The participants’ strong will to learn, improve, listen to their peers, compare their own entrepreneurial approach to those of other artpreneurs, exchange opinions, experiences and advice made the difference for the real success of the sessions.
The first session was already a great personal discovery itself for the participants as the confidential environment established encouraged their self-reflection and self-belief. The opportunity to tell and share their own experiences, visions and values to set smart and feasible goals disclosed their own potentialities to become aware of their successful achievements on a national level and to visualise the milestones of their businesses internationalisation process.
The opportunities provided in the second session to analise their personal and professional stories and the strengths and weaknesses of their future plans made them even more motivated and committed to improve their skills and determination to plan an effective internationalisation plan.
The last session gave all participants the opportunity to reflect and visualise their own business internationalisation plan through the Creative Project Canvas and finally to review and gather what implemented and learnt in their International Action Plan.
As a participant wrote, the most successful outcome of these first Artists Circles sessions was that “after 3 sessions only, I have improved my assertiveness, my self-efficacy, self-awareness and networking abilities”.
This is also the best reward for the Global FemArt partnership and Materahub.
