This project addresses the need for strengthened programs for NEET youth/women in the field of entrepreneurship.
In a unique consortium (Youth Power Germany, UDRUGA ZA UNAPRJEDENJE SUVREMENIH ZIVOTNIH VJESTINA OSTVARENJE – (Croatia); YOUTH POWER/UNG KRAFT (Sweden); CNL CENTRE FOR NON-FORMAL EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING (Serbia); Wizard, obrt za savjetovanje (Croatia), we identified that especially among our target groups of immigrants and marginalised groups within each of our countries) girls and young women are less active in business and entrepreneurship, and particularly as independent entrepreneurs and business leaders. Only 9 of 59 youth workers (15%) have previous experience with social enterprises start-ups and use that experience in their youth work. Only 4 of 59 (6%) youth workers working on NFE with youngsters, have been through some kind of education about (social) marketing and feel confident in organising youth work activities in the topic.
Our aim was to change the situation described above by equipping youth organisations and youth workers with tools and approaches they can use to support entrepreneurship of young women in a way that is socially and culturally appropriate.
Our project objectives:
Empower our youth workers and improve knowledge management of youth work organizations in theory and practice for building competences of youth workers in social entrepreneurship for sustainable future with less conflict, for NEET youngsters, young women – through an innovative curriculum and online course for youth workers’ training.
Empower NEET youngsters, young women for social entrepreneurship start-up and quality social marketing of theirs, through development of inspiring, innovative and up-to-date handbook, toolkit, as well as the online courses.
Exchange good practices and further develop quality strategic partnership among partners from 5 European countries with different realities in regards to youth social entrepreneurship for a sustainable future with less conflict.
With the financial support of the EU we were able to realize our objectives:
1) Curriculum “Social entrepreneurship youth work for a sustainable future with less conflict”
presents an innovative resource for youth trainers to organize a 7-day long training course and educate youth workers (current and future ones) to further develop organizational culture, mentoring, and workshops for NEET youngsters (women) on the topic of social entrepreneurship start-ups.
2) E-learning course for youth workers “Social entrepreneurship youth work for a sustainable future with less conflict”.
3) Handbook “How to start-up the social enterprises for a sustainable future with less conflict”
is an innovative resource for both youth workers and youngsters who want to learn more about starting-up social enterprises based on the newest developments in the field. The guidebook deals with important social entrepreneurship for a sustainable future with less conflict topics, including vision, passion, emotional intelligence, negotiation and creativity. The guidebook does not deal and focus only on typical topics, such as the development of business idea or creating a communication plan, but it also includes the most recent developments in the field of social entrepreneurship and green entrepreneurship, the new era of entrepreneurship.
4) E-learning course for youngsters “How to start-up the social enterprises for a sustainable future with less conflict”.
5) Toolkit as resource material for both youth workers who will further work directly with NEET youth/women, as well as for youngsters who will start up social enterprises and are interested in learning more about potential social marketing for those start-ups of theirs.
6) E-learning course for youngsters “Social marketing of social enterprises for a sustainable future with less conflict”
We had over 250 local multipliers/youth workers empowered in 5 countries about the innovation and digitalization of social entrepreneurship youth work for the inclusion of NEET youth/women.
At the local level, the project made an impact through the creation and development of innovative resources, methodologies, and tools for providing youth work activities on topics of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship for youngsters with fewer opportunities. The organizations implementing this project, as well as other organizations and stakeholders reached through the multipliers meetings from 5 local communities, now have at their disposal more effective tools and more competent staff to engage in entrepreneurship education for young women who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Thanks to that, the effectiveness of youth work and non-formal education in those communities significantly increased. Through the development of online courses, we managed to reach a wider number of young people than usually involved in our daily activities, which also helped us to raise general awareness in local communities about (social) entrepreneurship and more young people will consider it as an option for combating with social problems in their communities. Finally, through the empowered skills and competencies of our youth workers and staff members, we expect that more projects with the same/similar topics will be developed in the near future. This will help local communities to start a potential gender-transformative impact when showed that there is no harm if young women (especially those with fewer opportunities) participate in entrepreneurship education or start up their own social enterprises.
Impact at the European and international levels was achieved through developed intellectual outputs that later can be multiplied in any other countries or local communities. Those outputs were designed in such a way that it is pretty easy to adapt them to any local circumferences and needs of different target groups. Outputs have been already disseminated at the European level to other youth organizations and relevant stakeholders.
