Success stories

For the past two years, Velina Vaitkunaite has been working on a socially responsible enterprise in Ukraine that develops the production of fruit snacks, employing women who raise their own children. It is the experience of Lithuanian social enterprises that she wants to bring to the company at this stage because of the similarities of Eastern European cultures. Nevertheless, she wants to learn from the differences between the two countries, follow the experiences of a developed country like Lithuania and adopt progressive approaches. For these reasons, she decided to participate in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme and have an exchange with the host entrepreneur Sigita Vaiciute, the founder of Gyvatos.

Velina and Sigita worked together for a month. Sigita helped Velina discover the new country and its culture. Velina learned more about negotiation, the importance of business networks and building business partnerships. Velina and Sigita held a masterclass in Vilnius and created a large SMM database for future posts on social media. Velina shares that thanks to the exchange she gained: better business planning skills, understanding of the European market, new approaches to solving problems and developing contingency plans. According to Sigita, who participated as a host- entrepreneur, she was able to look at her business from a different angle, develop her mentoring skills and gain interesting insights into marketing.

Velina gained considerable experience in a foreign country, came into contact with a new culture and began to discover new connections and opportunities for development. She started building an SMM database and successfully ran a Masterclass. She has no plans to stop and wants to expand further. Velina and Sigita stay in touch and may do some joint projects in the future.