From the author: We can always take a break, look back at the years we have lived and ask ourselves the question: is the path I am following really my path? If, answering a similar question , you feel joy and inspiration, feel free to move on, because you are a happy person and, most likely, you are going your own way through life. If your soul trembles in agonizing anticipation of liberation from what you have experienced, if your heart beats joyfully in anticipation of change, allow yourself, no matter what stage of life you are at, to remember your dreams. Get your wings back - allow yourself to be happy! If a person has a “why” to live, he can withstand any “how” Friedrich Nietzsche For many years I worked in a company of successful people in a large modern city and, as they say, I saw with my own eyes that being rich does not always mean being happy. The paradox is that a person often strives at any cost to make a career, to be known as successful, to earn a lot of money, in order to finally live happily. But look how many of us are disappointed in life, how many of us are doing something we don’t love, who haven’t created a happy family or are on the verge of losing interest in life. The good news is that every thinking person has periods when he rethinks his life. We can always take a break, look back at the past years and ask ourselves the question: is the path I’m on really my path? If, answering a question like this, you feel joy and inspiration, feel free to move on, because you are a happy person and, most likely, you are going your own way through life. If your soul trembles in agonizing anticipation of liberation from what you have experienced, if your heart beats joyfully in anticipation of change, allow yourself, no matter what stage of life you are at, to remember your dreams. Give back your wings - allow yourself to be happy! Friends, this is how I would like to approach the topic of social entrepreneurship, which we will talk about in this article, since I head the Center for Innovation in the Social Sphere of the Belgorod Region. Honestly speaking, I admire entrepreneurs. For me, these are people who allow themselves to make their dreams come true. They choose to serve an idea that inspires them, and, therefore, gives them the energy to live and create. These are brave people - they are in constant search of business ideas, resources, markets, and at the same time they rely primarily on themselves! Do I need to explain at length who social entrepreneurs are? First of all, they are entrepreneurs - people who have that very “commercial spirit”, charisma and character to create a successful business. And if a person calls himself a social entrepreneur, this means that his life is filled with a deeper meaning than money, success, profit. These are people who strive to bring something more into the world through their activities; among their key values ​​is love for life and for people , compassion, desire to help someone who finds themselves in a difficult life situation. Often such entrepreneurs themselves have experienced difficult turns of fate, managed to cope with them and now help others. It is no coincidence that social entrepreneurship is often called a movement of the soul. Let's look at our Belgorod examples. Svetlana Pogrebenko is the creator of the Malyutka network of private kindergartens. Warm, beautiful, homely, fun and joyful - these are the feelings that Svetlana and the atmosphere she and her team created in Malyutka evoke in me. Sveta thinks not only about healthy children, but also about those families where there are children with disabilities health capabilities, or, as they now say, special needs. Svetlana decided to help these people - to take such children to kindergarten so that they feel as much as possible on an equal basis with others, so that they also rejoice and have fun, learn and believe in their capabilitiesand in the kindness of people. Sveta tells how she waited with trepidation to see what the parents of children who had been going to her kindergarten for a long time would say, whether they would support her decision. And here on the threshold was her mother - the wife of a wealthy man, a woman who was accustomed to the fact that her the child is surrounded by an atmosphere of well-being, and then she sees that a baby with cerebral palsy is approaching them, and her daughter smiles at him and holds out her favorite toy. Svetlana was ready for the fact that some parents would not understand her and would move to another kindergarten. But mom told Sveta that if the staff in her kindergarten knows how to make such a child happy, then she boldly trusts them with her daughter! What else should I add about Svetlana Pogrebenko? Her life motto: “Only forward! Never stop there." Sveta took part in the All-Russian competition, which was held by the Our Future Foundation, which develops social entrepreneurship in Russia, and won. She received an interest-free loan to open another kindergarten. Svetlana received a number of grants at the regional level. For several years now, the Belgorod region has been implementing a program to support those entrepreneurs who are solving an acute social problem - the lack of places in kindergartens. Such entrepreneurs, whom we boldly call social, are provided with financial support when opening a kindergarten, and also provide subsidies to parents who take their children there. In addition, the School of Social Entrepreneurship has been operating in Belgorod for the second year, where they teach the basics of entrepreneurship, business planning and the ability to present your social business - a project in order to look for partners, like-minded people and investors. This is a large-scale federal project, which is being implemented in our region with the support of the regional Department of Economic Development. And today I’m talking about those who studied at the School of Social Entrepreneurship. Continuing the topic of raising and developing children, I will name a number of entrepreneurs who literally put their souls into their business. In addition, many of them also help children with disabilities. “Magic Country” by Irina Melnikova. Polyantsa Natalya and her Montessori school "Rodnik". “Caramel” by Tatyana Chaloy. Piyukova Victoria with “Pencil Kids”. “The ABC of Health” by Vitalia Kushchenko. Natalya Smolyanina is the organizer of a number of projects for children with special needs and has received enormous support from the Belgorod diocese. Irina Belun, Oksana Yuryeva, Zhanna Meleshina, Tatyana Vlasyuk, Daria Belichko, Maria Timkina, Olesya Kutepova and many others. I would like to note a bright social project - “Sports in every yard!” Alexander Shevchenko and his WorkoutSport team. They created their own production of outdoor sports equipment. Over the 2 years of work in Belgorod and other large cities of Russia, the company has equipped 210 sports grounds, where more than 8 thousand people can exercise at a time. Other activities of social entrepreneurs include assistance in adaptation to displaced families; publishing magazines for children and parents; private summer camps, including for children with special needs. A number of entrepreneurs have united and intend to act to develop an accessible environment for people with disabilities, create prevention and rehabilitation centers, as well as private medical centers. There are also production projects, for example, the production of parts for imported tillage equipment; recycling; opening of a workshop for the assembly of household drinking water purification systems. Many adult education projects are advanced training programs; assistance in part-time employment for mothers on maternity leave; centers for creative and personal development. There are two youth projects - the organization of a leadership training center and hip-hop practice. Among the projects of entrepreneurs are services to the population: video surveillance in apartment buildings, legal services to help people in difficult life situations. These are just some examples of socially oriented!