As the labour sector gains a growing attention, a rising amount of young people (18-30 years of age) are showing an increased interest in becoming social entrepreneurs, as it is also proved by the training activities and the daily encounters of partner organisations with the target group. Yet in the partner countries except Italy and Greece (Cyprus, Iceland, Lithuania and FYROM) where legal or regulatory framework for social enterprises do not exist or the sector of SE has poor visibility and recognition, there is a need for a support structure which will provide these young, aspiring social entrepreneurs the information and assistance they need to kick-start their social enterprise. The specific objectives of Erasmus+ “Social Entrepreneurship for Youth” project are:
– To equip and support young people and youth workers with knowledge, key competences and tools related to social entrepreneurship and social innovation that are needed to turn entrepreneurial ideas into social start-ups, with a view to tackling challenges and problems identified within their communities.
– To foster cooperation and build new opportunities for further collaboration on social entrepreneurship between organisations active in the field from different EU countries.
The target group of the project is: young people, youth workers, NGOs volunteers, professionals who are dealing with youth and have an interest in social entrepreneurship & local community development.
This project’s Roadmap for Creating a social enterprise in 10 steps will be an innovative and totally entrepreneurial guide tool for young people. First of all, for young people who want to make their first step in the social business world, it’s easy to get lost on entrepreneurial route, and this small guide could be used as a road map. This guide will provide some information about the social business world and the opportunities but also will help them figure out where they are and what to do next. This tool will contain the necessary information, helpful instructions and available support that will help young people improving the quality of their educational level regarding social entrepreneurship as well as to demonstrate the power of self-employment through simple steps. Therefore, this tool will be the appropriate instrument to provide to young people a step process for plan, launch, manage, and grow successful social enterprises. The Roadmap will include text, videos, tables, virtual paths with key words, animations etc. Undoubtedly, all kind of drawings could be useful in educational settings because they could make quite a complicated topic, easier to understand and digest.
“Social Entrepreneurship for Youth” project’s Capacity Building Course will be developed with the goal to provide a practical framework for developing specific and targeted skills. Specifically, the course aims to enhance and deepens the competences of project’s target group, low qualified young people aged 18-30 years old, by inspiring them to have a positive societal and environmental impact in the world in terms of developing a business idea. This Course will be extremely useful for all the organizations involved, as well as for other organizations which deal with employability skills development and training, as it will provide the opportunity to members of the target group, fostering their entrepreneurial skills and economic growth without creating intolerable pollution or using up all the non-renewable resources. Furthermore, the course will introduce inputs from policies from all over Europe and cover a wide spectrum of examples of different types of initiatives of SE. Each course will last approximately 30 hours in total.
“Social Entrepreneurship for Youth” project’s “Help Desk” system will help young people aspiring to become social entrepreneurs with all the registration procedures and will provide information and assistance in one location. The web portal is an interactive platform which will include definitions on SE, guidelines on how to establish SEs in participating countries, different models, tools, relevant links, business ideas, etc, as well as information about the Project and its outcomes. This deliverable will be the tool which will be designed and become functional on-line, providing the opportunity to youth and the general public to receive all the information necessary before deciding on establishing the social business. This tool will provide information which are often sought by the aspiring social entrepreneurs such as what is the legal or regulatory framework for social enterprises in their country; what are the available legal forms a social enterprise can take (i.e. Company by guarantee, limited company, association); funding opportunities for aspiring social entrepreneurs in each partner country; list of training programmes for social entrepreneurs etc.
The project is funded by Erasmus+ programme.
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