Case Studies - Japanese Student Visit - Helping Communities

3rd October 2009

Social Enterprises in Herefordshire and Worcestershire get together to show Japanese students how they are helping communities.

Midwest Rural Enterprise CIC and The Fold CIC recently joined forces to facilitate a group of Japanese student who are looking into how communities are being supported by Social Enterprise.

The students were the guests of Yoshihiko Oyama from the Centre of Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham. Yoshihiko contacted Clare Foster from Midwest Rural Enterprise CIC and asked if he could bring the students to visit a rural Social Enterprise and to find out what support is available for communities.

Clare commented, “I decided to take the students to The Fold in Bransford as it is a great example of a successful Social Enterprise. My colleague Margaret Gray explained how Social Enterprises are being supported and how the model is helping our local communities. The students then had a tour of The Fold with Will Tooby, who is one of the founding directors.”

Yoshihiko said, I would like to thank Midwest Rural Enterprise and The Fold very much indeed for making their busy time available for us and explaining so clearly what they are trying to do through setting up social enterprises in rural areas. It was an ideal venue at the Fold and I feel that we learnt a lot. Lunch was lovely too.”

After having lunch at The Fold, the students went on to Leominster to visit Julian Morgan and the team at 7Y Energy.

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