Success stories

New entrepreneur:
Nataliia Deineko (Ukraine)
Age: 34
Company name: Urban nails (Start-up)
Sector of activity: Health, beauty and social services

Host entrepreneur:
Ieva Malukiene (Lithuania)
Age: 39
Company name: Urban Green Šančia / https://www.instagram.com/urban_green_sanciai/ (3 years of experience)
Sector of activity: Health, beauty and social services

Nataliia Deineko, 34, is a nail specialist from Ukraine. When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Nataliia and her 7-year-old daughter decided to flee the country to Lithuania to be far away from the military action and seized the opportunity to participate in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme. Just the thought of support from the European Union and the Lithuanian people gave her hope for her future life, which started from scratch. So, at the end of August 2022, she started an exchange with local host entrepreneur Ieva Malukiene, owner of the salon "Urban Green Sanciai" since 2020.

Nataliia and Ieva worked together for 6 months. Ieva helped Nataliia discover the new country and its culture, the difference in dealing with clients in the beauty industry and learn more about sustainable salons and lifestyle. Ieva showed Natalia the new technique of manicure, introduced her to distributors of natural cosmetics in Kaunas, Lithuania, taught her how to become an instructor and spokesperson, and how to work on social media to attract new clients. According to Ieva, 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, making her salon even more popular than before. The biggest advantage was the addition of Japanese manicures to the list of procedures, which increased the salon's value as a sustainable business as Ieva and Nataliia were able to offer more procedures with eco value. The greatest success was that Nataliia and Ieva managed to offer lectures and they have plans to expand this into an online business.

Nataliia gained a lot of experience in a foreign country, obtained a lot of insights during the participation, met many helpful people and discovered a new culture. She started her own professional career and developed from a nail specialist to a trainer and speaker in the field of manicure. Ieva had long had the idea of giving lectures in the field of beauty care and building a business in the field of online study. She is very happy that with the plan, hard work and help from EYE, she and Natalia were able to take a step in this field. All the assigned plans and tasks that were in the commitment were completed. Both sides of the exchange were very happy with their results and did not expect their teamwork to go so easily in one direction. Nataliia and Ieva stay in touch and are already thinking about their future project.

For more information, please contact the local contact points involved in the exchange:

New entrepreneur's contact point:
Alfred Nobel University (Dnipro, Ukraine)

Host entrepreneur's contact point:
European social entrepreneurship and innovative studies institute (Kaunas, Lithuania)

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