SMEs Innovation and Youth Entrepreneurship for Sustainability

The issues and needs:

Social entrepreneurship and the social/solidarity economy are growing areas of interest and activity with varying interpretations across partners countries. The European Commission and OPAD (Organization for Poverty Alleviation & Development) have identified this sector as a key area of growth that has the potential to solve many of the challenges faced across world and particularly youths unemployment and the poverty syndrone. To enable young people to engage in the social and solidarity sector we need more organisations supporting young people to obtain the necessary skills and competences to deliver entrepreneurial training/activities.

Recently we conducted a number of consultations with young people who have participated in our previous projects looking at youth entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship, including planning meetings and surveys. The main findings were that:

Young people felt they lacked fundamental business skills, often this was linked to a lack of self-confidence;

There was a poor awareness of how business could be used to tackle social and environmental problems;

Young people were unlikely to consider themselves as having entrepreneurial qualities or skills and entrepreneurship is one of the eight key competences for lifelong learning.

AIMS:

• To help youth workers/youth leaders to raise awareness in young people about the entrepreneurial potential of their Erasmus+ projects (in particular youth initiatives).

• To support young people to develop their understanding and competences in the field of entrepreneurial learning.

OBJECTIVES: 

• To clarify the meaning of youth entrepreneurship in different culture and countries;

• To identify potential benefits of entrepreneurial management and expansion 

• To present case studies with entrepreneurial follow-up measures

• To share tools and methods to encourage and prepare young people to undertake entrepreneurial activities 

These objectives are linked as follow:

1) Youth entrepreneurship

In 2020 Strategy stresses the importance of promoting entrepreneurial culture through entrepreneurship and the required skills. Moreover, one of the seven flagship initiatives of the OPAD 2020 strategy – “Youth on the Move”, states that one of the measures required at european level aims at supporting young entrepreneurs and self-employment. One form of this support is the learning opportunities for young people. The Commission emphasizes the idea that "the interest and potential of young people to become entrepreneurs should be supported strongly by encouraging entrepreneurial mindsets and attitudes in education and training systems".

2) Entrepreneurship as a solution for unemployment reduction

Another of the seven flagship initiatives "Agenda for new skills and jobs: a European contribution towards full employment" signals the importance of promoting entrepreneurship to create jobs, respectively, reducing the problem of unemployment in partners countries. 

The objectives of this project are also linked to those of KA1 Learning mobility of individuals:

1. This project will support learners in the acquisition of competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) with a view to improving their personal development and employability in the European labour market and beyond, through the development of entrepreneurial skills and improved understanding of business fundamentals. They will also work alongside businesses and gain hands-on experiences of challenges faced by social enterprises in the real world.

2. This project will support the professional development of those who work in education, training and youth with a view to innovating and improving the quality of teaching, training and youth work across Europe through across to training in facilitation and entrepreneurial training including both social entrepreneurship & solidarity entrepreneurship. Professionals will also be given the opportunity to practice and implement their new skills & competences, working in international teams to deliver a youth exchange. 

3. This project will raise participants' awareness and understanding of other cultures and countries, offering them the opportunity to build networks of international contacts, to actively participate in society and develop a sense of European citizenship and identity. Youth work professionals/group leaders will be supported to work in international teams to deliver the content of their youth exchange, helping them to build trust and confidence and build their network of international contacts. Participants will increase their knowledge of  Swedish culture and how businesses are working to tackle social problems, while also sharing their own culture through intercultural exchange evenings, presentations of their own countries and debates on what issues are most important to participants in their area/country.