Peer2Peer with Zip House in Moldova

Last December, we had the possibility to develop a peer2peer exchange with Zip House, one of our partners of European Creative Hubs Network. They are a creative hub located in Chisinau, in Moldova.

The objective of these exchanges are to share knowledge, ideas and moments to build new alliances between creative hubs in Europe.

It was a really interesting experience even  though we had to adapt the agenda to the Covid restrictions. It was supposed to be an offline exchange but finally, it was an online one.

Here you can see the evolution of the project and its results:

• Session 1. Discovering our hubs.

During this session we shared more in depth what are the vision, goals and values of our creative hubs with Carolina Tulgara (executive director of ZIPHOUSE); África Rodríguez (co- founder of Espacio Arroelo) and Ana del Valle (President of Ticket2europe). You can see the ZIPHOUSE presentation here.

• Session 2. Expectations and needs.

We analised the needs of our communities in order to create new bonds between our hubs. We had the opportunity to meet Mihai Juna, one of the members of Zip House. In addition, our member Ana del Valle from Ticket2europe shared what they do from our city in Pontevedra to develop European projects. We came to a clear conclusion: how neccesary it is to be in contact and help each other.

• Session 3. Reformulating the final event.

After discovering points in common we decided to identify the main elements about the content of the final event. We brainstorm about the best agenda for our members and the best people to take part in it.

• Session 4. New collaborations between Espacio Arroelo and Zip House.

We decided to organised a session with members of our community to talk about the next call of European Creative Hubs Network. This is why to shared what is Makersxchange. After the explanation, we introduce some of our members and to brainstorm about ideas on how to apply for this new call.

From Espacio Arroelo community, Ignacio Márquez,  explained the project he manages in our city, Noites Abertas. In addition, Haya Blanco, a painter of our region explained her professional career in arts and cultural field.

From Zip House, Svetlana Dimitrioglo, light industry manager at Moldova Competitiveness Project founded by USAID, explained us the relevance of Zip House impact during the last years and the importance of creating new international bonds between creative hubs.

Mihai Janu shared their history as clothes designer and Dimitri Slobodnyuk, as the director of a model agency.

The brainstorming helped us to identify future ideas and we are already preparing the application together to show that no matter the distance we can collaborate and create new projects trough arts.

• Session 4. Building opportunities through the European Creative Hubs Network
  

We organised a public event of 2 hours duration.

Firstly, we shared what is the European Creative Hubs Network and we explained the experience of Espacio Arroelo and Zip House.

Then, Belen Mendoza from Chamber of Commerce of Santiago de Compostela, shared what is the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme. Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is a cross-border exchange programme which gives new or aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to learn from experienced entrepreneurs running small businesses in other Participating Countries from the European Union.

Also, our member Ana del Valle shared their experiences as a host in Galicia and Haya Blanco as a entrepreneur in Berlin.

This session was really fruitfull because Moldova can not participate nowadays as a intermediare country so the entrepreneurs of this country can not easily have the chance to be part of this initiative. Thanks to this exchange, since yesterday, the members of Zip House can directly contact to Belen to be part of this opportunity. You can listen to the recorded session in this link just in case you would love to discover more about it. We consider this European project is a more than interesting opportunity to keep on building alliances between European hubs and of course between the members of the European Creative Hubs Network. Who knows if in the future we will host in Pontevedra Mihai as a young entrepreneur to co-create new ideas and bonds between our countries.

After that, we closed the session with the interesting history of Mihai and the evolution of ZipHouse. We focused the temathic on how to stimulate active citizenship between youth. He shared successful stories from Zip House. We discovered how the help to promote youngsters trough contests, hackatons, pop up stores, labs and trainings in a warm and familiar environment. You can see the presentation here.

In the end, that is the key, as Carline says if you create a space of freedom and positiveness we all are ready to create.

As a result of this exchange, we are really proud to conclude that:

1. We created new bonds with other stakeholders of each of our regions. After this exchange, members of Zip House has direct contact with our alliance Belen Mendoza from Chamber of Commerce of Santiago to help them to be part as hosts and entrepreneurs of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme.
2. We began to think on a new project between our creative hubs . We decided to apply together to the call Makersxchange in order to continue building together trough creativity, open vision and positive attitude. We are writing the application and it will be ready for January 4th. We are sure this has been just the beginning of a long term project. You will have news soon 🙂

Thanks for this opportunity European Creative Hubs Network, Creative Flip , Goethe Institute and European Union.