The EU-Partnership Places-3t visited Molenbeek (Brussels, Belgium). The transnational project Meeting days in Brussels, Belgium were very interesting days with a good balance between working on outputs and (study)visiting happy workplaces at La Vallée, Circularium and La Maison des Cultures.

A Molenbeek Testimonial

Carla de Vreij, chairwoman of the Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work (DFW2W) finds Molenbeek remarkable: ,,Molenbeek is separated from the other districts by a canal. There was a great economic and social difference between the neighbourhood on one side of the canal and the other side of the canal. The difference that struck me is the origin of the residents. The so-called immigrants. Over the years this gap has narrowed as real estate on one side of the canal became more expensive and people in the Molenbeek area started looking for houses. This created a natural integration, which was not conceived but originated. This made a big impression on me.”

Carla continued: ,, I also noticed that you don’t see any gardens, I haven’t seen any outdoor play areas for children and there is remarkably little ‘Green’. Where something is not there, there is a place for innovation and creativity. The ‘examples of good practice’ were very inspiring and are characterized by innovative thinking, creativity, positivity and commitment to the local community and increase the sense of well-being.”

,,It is truly wonderful to see how the mind of human is stimulated to express itself in all kinds of expressions. Where the language may not be a common denominator, the culture and religion may be different and where the circumstances are not always favourable, enormous effort and benevolence has been shown here to bring people together in all kinds of activities, from daytime activities, participation in individual activities and/ or entrepreneurship.”

Study Visits Brussels

The Partnership made 3 study visits:

1. La Vallée

2. Circularium

3. La Maison des Cultures

La Vallee

La Vallée is a place where entrepreneurs can rent a space to work and they create places to meet and exchange experiences. Everyone gets a chance, it’s accessible.  Good atmosphere, lots of space, inspiring, connected to the community, diverse and an opportunity to do business in collaboration with others. The location of the building is in the middle of the neighborhood, which increases accessibility. Good example of a Places-3T.

Circularium – Circular Econoomy is waiting for you

Circularium is a ”Well thought-out project”, conceived from the perspective of sustainability. Impressive how they have linked the environment to entrepreneurial thinking. A typical example of a Places-3T. Filling an empty building, with infrastructure connected to a major social problem, picked up from collaboration and executed in a unique, innovative way. Where circulation and regulation are central. This place raises awareness by the community. Carla:,,I have experienced it as a very inspiring place, which activated my creative mind.”

La Maison des Cultures

This is not Places-3T but very nice to see. Beautiful building, in the middle of the neighbourhood. Accessible to everyone. Focused on entertainment, daytime activities, education and training. Very impressed with the wall full of photos, beautifully done.

Desiree van der heydt was also impressed about the 3rd places in Brussels: ,,I have learned a lot and I am very grateful for that.” Carla adds:,,These were very instructive days. I feel very privileged to have visited these places. A Great source of inspiration!!!!!”

Places-3t Going Dutch

The next Places-3t meeting will be on April 28th-29th 2022 in The Netherlands. This will be held at the entrepreneurial hub, Area071 in Leiden/Leiderdorp, Zuid-Holland.

Visit our website: https://www.places3t.eu/

Why this trend for third places? We spoke about about this during our OnLine meeting on May 25th. During the Places-3T Workshop on June 3rd we will talk more in-depth about the many factors influencing this trend. Among others: those linked to the “delocalisation of tertiary and/or managerial work or including customer relations, for example, which was thought to be dependent on “face-to-face” meetings, or those linked to the flexibilisation of the workforce – and therefore of the necessary square meters … But beyond these simple considerations of the profitability of physical locations, it seems interesting to “reverse” the proposal and to take advantage of it to open up new ideas, which make it possible to combine severa new approaches: the creation of value, well-being at work, the spirit of entrepreneurship, the sharing of values, welcoming and inclusive environments, social and technological innovation, culture and artistic enrichment, etc.

Spring School Workshops June 3rd 2021

On June 3 2021 the Spring School 2021 of the International Network of Cités des Métiers will be organised. If you haven’t had the time to reserve your spot yet, don’t delay to do it and register here. One of the workshops is about the Erasmus+ Places-3T project which explores new 3rd places ideas and the key factors for success, by drawing on existing examples and developing support for creators and facilitators. Most of the sessions will be in French or English but the discussions can take place in multiple languages. PIERRE PEVÉE, Manager of LaVallée, a creative place developed by SMart, SANJIN PLAKALO, Senior project manager – Pour la Solidarité – Brussels and LILIANE ESNAULT Responsible of Project Development at FREREF- Lyon are giving a workshop. They are delighted to exchange their ideas in the most participative way as possible.

Places-3T OnLine Meeting May 20th 2021

On May 20th we had a full day OnLine Places-3T meeting. FUEIB and CEIS presented their collected practices. This allowed us to make a first identification of the key success factors of the good practices.

Context of the Successful Place
It’s important to know that there are several types of spaces:
* Spaces to promote and support the initiatives of great economic and social impact.
* Center for creative entrepreneurs (artists) to develop cultural and social events.
* Space for meeting, exchange and production of artists of musical scenes.
* Floating cultural centre to present artistic events (concerts, exhibitions…)
* Local innovation and circular production center dedicated to the city.
* Third place for the meeting and exchange of different audiences (public and private institutions) with the aim to promote social initiatives.
* Community place for the development of activities that improve life in a neighborhood.
* Third educational place that brings together educational actors to innovate together and to strengthen academic success, orientation and digital inclusion.

The Partnership PLACES-3T is all about 3rd type places for Collaborative Creative Learning and Entrepreneurship. Supported by Erasmus+, the European project Places-3T aims to develop and make sustainable places of the “third type”, i.e. physical, virtual and/or hybrid collaborative spaces that enable social, cultural and entrepreneurial innovation.

Create your own Journey

The economic, social, environmental structures, employment, training, insertion, guidance in a constantly and rapidly evolving universe, lead to imagine new routes so that every person may create their own place into the ecosystem. The current development of working modalities implies more and more to reflect upon, and be able to implement successfully, the possibility of working in a hybrid way, partly on site and partly at distance.

Out of Institutional systems, various experiments have evidenced the desire and the possibility to develop spaces and places that enable people to find themselves, create their own journey, though cooperation, co-creation, co-learning.
The PLACES-3T Spaces are special, anchored in their territorial, social, cultural context. They support people in developing new ways of learning, creating value, based on new success criteria: trust building – trust in yourself, in others, in the future; respect of the persons and of the planet; valorisation of abilities acquired previously, and developed in cooperation and collaboration; value of the creative thinking (“flip thinking”).

The Partnership PLACES-3T will develop

• a repository of successful innovative European practices;
• a set of key success factors that may be re-appropriated in new contexts;
• elements of sustainable business models that may be re-appropriated in new contexts;
• elements to support the decision in process of hybridizing the spaces;
• a methodology to accompany actors in creating, and animating “PLACES-3T Places”;
• pilot actions to experiment real life field implementations;
• recommendations towards the decision and policy makers, who have the levers to enable the creation, support the development and sustain the life of these spaces.

Places-3T Partner Organisations

Below a short introduction of the Places-3T partner organisations involved. All partners will be properly introduced and disseminated through our Places-3T Social Media accounts and added in this article asap (untill the introduction of all partners is complete. In the framework of an Erasmus+ strategic partnership, this project brings together 7 structures with specific and complementary fields of expertise spread over 5 regions in 5 European countries:

• Smart (Belgium) (leader)

Smart kis the leader of the Places-3T partnership and was set up in Belgium in 1998 as a not-for profit organisation by Pierre Burnotte and Julek Jurowicz, the Société Mutuelle pour artistes (SMart) (Mutual Company for Artists) converted into a Société Coopérative à Responsabilité Limitée et à Finalité Sociale (SCRLFS) (Limited Liability Cooperative Society with A Social Purpose) in 2017. More recently, it decided to drop its acronym, retaining only the resulting name. This change of identity highlights the cooperative’s willingness to reflect the diversity of the profiles of all the workers, women and men, who call on its services, regardless of the line of work they are in.

Smart is there for anyone who needs us. Regardless of the profile of its users (service providers, artists, VSBs/SMEs, associations, etc.), whether they are working for a day or working to develop their activities on a sustainable full-time basis, whether they are planning to employ staff, looking to make substantial investments or simply need to bill a one-off service provided, Smart has the right solution for them. Smart is a European group that operates in nine countries, with sites in close to 40 towns and cities. Smart manages, either by itself or in partnership, around ten third places across Europe: LaVallée in Molenbeek and the Bazaar St-S

http://www.smart.coop

• FREREF (France) (co-coordinator): The Forum of European Regions for Research, Education and Training (FREREF[2]), is a non-profit international association (AISBL) founded in 1991 at the initiative of Catalonia, Lombardy and Rhône-Alpes, quickly joined by Baden-Württemberg, the French community of Wallonia-Brussels, Genova canton, Luxembourg and the Baleares region. FREREF is acting to put Lifelong Learning into practice and into politics and is aimed to be the instrument of European Regions in the field of education and training to set up a platform for dialogue and cooperation. FREREF is currently providing support for about 20 European regions in their initiatives for Lifelong Learning.
• AFPA (Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France)
• CEIS (Emilia Romagna, Italy)
• FUEIB (Islas Baleares, Spain)

• DFOIW2W (Netherlands): The Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work (DFW2W) is an independent, non-profit organisation, based in the ‘Dream Bigger Do Bigger’ Rotterdam Region (Holland), which supports professionals (e.g. European institutes, municipalities, councils, provinces, governments, employment agencies, training providers, youth work organisations, non-profit organisations) and young people (aged 14-35) to reach their full potential in the fields of (youth) employment, traineeship, education, social innovation, social inclusion and (young) entrepreneurship. You can follow DFW2W on twitter (@DFOIW2W), Instagram (@DFW2W) and Facebook (@DutchFoundationOfInnovationWelfare2Work).

• POUR LA SOLIDARITÉ – PLS (Belgium) : PLS were founded in 2002 and based in Brussels, Belgium, POUR LA SOLIDARITÉ – PLS is an independent think & do tank committed to promoting solidarity and sustainability in Europe. PLS is mobilising to defend and consolidate the European social model, which is made up of the subtle balance between economic development and social justice. PLS focuses all its activities on five thematic areas: social economy, social affairs, corporate social responsibility and diversity, sustainable development and citizen participation. For the Places-3T project, PLS brings its expertise in both the development and sustainability of innovative tools for various types of third-place stakeholders, its network of European players and structures operating in the related field, as well as its expertise in research and analysis. PLS is notably in charge of coordinating project’s policy recommendations: capitalising on how to maximise the impacts and ensure the sustainability of project tools. PLS also has recently published an article: Read here

Social media Accounts and Website Places-3T

Currently the Partnership Places-3T is active on the following social media accounts:

Facebook: @Places3T

Twitter: @3tPlaces

Website: https://www.places3t.eu/