It is important to work in several directions at once, says Eva Viļķina, board member of the social enterprise “Visi Var”, proving in practice that this philosophy pays off. The company employs people with disabilities, their relatives and people from socially disadvantaged groups. The social enterprise both produces and sells – the products of the various workshops are sold in a charity shop and the income goes to implement charity projects, provide social support and purchase equipment needed to create new jobs.

“Sometimes one strand will have more orders, sometimes less, but they balance each other out. The same goes for the shop – we don’t just sell handicrafts, we also have a donation platform, we offer household chemicals that come from Germany. There are several directions we can benefit from,” Eva shares her experience.

The social enterprise “Visi Var” grew out of the association “Cerību spārni” (Wings of Hope), which was formed by parents of children with disabilities. “I have a daughter myself, who will be 32 this year, who is mentally disabled – she suffered brain damage as a result of a birth injury. Thirty years ago, society was not very accepting, and I had to face a lot of negligence, disinterest on the part of professionals from the institutions. I had to go through a lot to stand up for my child, to think how to improve her functional state – it helped me to gain a lot of experience. In 2002 I started meeting parents who also had children with disabilities, and a year later we founded an association so that we could organise support projects, donations and build a long-term support system,” says Eva Viļķina.

In 2002, Eva started meeting parents who also had children with disabilities, and a year later the association was founded to set up support projects, organise donations and build a support system.

Step by step, the association grew, cooperation with the municipality for the provision of social services was established, and in 2016, the interest about social entrepreneurship started. “Cerību spārni” has also been involved in shaping legislation in this area. “As we started to think more about it, we decided that we could form a limited liability company to separate our economic activity from the activities in association. So, the association took the lead in setting up the social enterprise, and when the social enterprise law came into force on 1 April 2018, we had already set up our own,” Eva recalls.

“The company currently employs 15 people, the vast majority of whom are from the target group. For example, there is a person who receives services from the association, but we see that he has already reached a level where he can work permanently, create something. If we see that they can go and work in the open labour market, then we encourage that. And for those who can’t, we give them the opportunity to work with us. This is done according to their abilities and according to the working hours that the person can do,” says Eva. The company also employs several parents with children with disabilities – their working hours are tailored to how and where they need to take their child.

At the start of “Visi Var”, the company was renting space – until the owner raised the rent significantly. “Then we realised it was going to be difficult – that almost all the money we were making was going to rent. We looked for solutions and noticed that there were vacant premises in the parish centre. We asked the municipality for help so that we could use the space for free. The municipality stepped in and now we have a shop in the premises,” says Eva.

The shop sells handicrafts made by people with disabilities, but there is also a charity platform where anyone can donate household items or clothes, the best of which are sold and the income is used to buy new equipment for the workshops. There are currently five workshops: woodworking, sewing, knitting, printing and creative. Here too, the company works closely with the association, and once a month the craftspeople from both the social enterprise and the association workshops come together to think about new designs and products that could be produced in each workshop. “These are product brainstorming sessions where we think about how we can make a product when several workshops work together,” explains Eva.

The tasks are various, for example, in the sewing workshop, new garments are sewn and existing ones are repaired. Capacity also varies. Although it usually seems that more orders would be welcome, sometimes they have to be refused because they are too big. “For example, we made pencil holders for a company. We made as many as they asked for. Today they asked if we could make a thousand a month. We estimated that we could make 500 at the moment,” says Eva. Partnerships are also being formed with other shops. For example, Elvi now sells candles made in the association’s workshops. “It’s a regular order. There are also various corporate orders from time to time.”

The idea of this type of company has also caught on in other parts of Latvia, and there is already some thought about how branches could be set up. The idea is to expand to more cities, but each place is evaluating whether to set up its own business or whether it would be better to work with someone else to sell its products.