The overall objective of this project is to build social entrepreneurial skills in young people interested in managing sports organisations. This will be achieved through creating a training path and European certification for young people (18-30) who are involved with sports organisations either as athletes or as members of the organisation, to provide them with the skills necessary to manage a sports organisation following the principles and values of a community social enterprise, such as: • Conceiving the sports environment as a space to foster and promote social inclusion; • Adopting a holistic, athlete-focused approach; • Providing on-going training to coaches based on EDUCO project (518616-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP) training package (www.educoproject.eu); • Re-investing profit in the community (for example through offering community services to families and athletes to accompany sports activities, depending on community needs). At the end of the training course, the participants will conclude their training at a summer camp in Turkey, where they will meet their European peers and social entrepreneurs from across Europe and will develop and present their own "social business plan". A platform will be created to be managed by them, which willl allow them to continue to share their work and might be the embrio for a future network of European social community sports organisations. In order to achieve this, specific objectives are: 1. Creation of a training curriculum tailored to the social management of a sports organisation. This will include: • Elements of management of a community social enterprise • Sports clubs as a space fostering social inclusion • Athlete-focused approach • Children and families • Community role and provision of wider services 2. Creation of an EU-level qualification (EU SOCIAL SPORTS MANAGEMENT PASSPORT) based on a self-assessment framework, following the model developed in the project EDUCO (518616-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP). 3. Creation of a Platform which will represent an embrionic Network of future European Community Sports Organisations.
Background: The YouthSports.com project is a strategic partnership action involving the Italian Cooperative Social Cooperative Società Borgorete, working with City of London Corporation in the United Kingdom, the Soros training institute in Romania, Cukurova University in Turkey. Following the road already undertaken with the Educo project (http://www.educoproject.eu), the goal is to stimulate young people between 18 and 30 years of entrepreneurial skills linked to the sport world to achieve a double result: To offer a more employment opportunity to young people and to foster the development of social skills. The so-called Sports Management combines with the most ethical concept of social enterprise, an activity the primary purpose of which is not to create profits, but to make more profitable the whole community. Youthsport.com intends to develop training materials and an assessment framework that combines sport management with social enterprise for young people aged 18 to 30 years. This report illustrates the initial research phase on the needs of the project. The social enterprise is in different stages of development in the partner countries. Italy and the UK have a well-established tradition and regulatory frameworks, while the social enterprise sector in Romania is re-emerging after communism and is still relatively small. In Turkey, while there are more than 3,000 private foundations that undertake social change programs and which play an active role in the creation of a democratic and civil society, the social enterprise sector is still in its early stages. Internationally operating social enterprises, such as Ashoka, have regional offices in partner countries, except in Romania. Objectives: The general objective of the project was to build entrepreneurship in young people interested in sport management. The project provided for this goal to be achieved through the creation of a training and certification course for young people (18-30 years) already involved in the world of sport, including the principles and values of a community social enterprise: - to design the sports space as a space to promote and encourage social inclusion - adopt a holistic approach based on the athlete - Provide constant training to sports trainers on the basis of the EDUCO project (518616-LLP-1-2011-1-IT-GRUNDTVIG-GMP) - re-invest the profits in the community (eg by providing family services, etc.). The project's specific objectives were as follows: • Create a training package for the social management of sports organizations • Creating a European Certification (European Passport) based on a self-assessment framework • Creating an E-space as a sharing space used by training participants • Development of a Roadmap Paper Partner: Società Cooperativa Sociale Borgorete (IT); Cukurova University (Turkey); Spektrum fundation (Romania); City of London Corporation (United Kingdom) were partners in the project, bringing different skills and representing a part-nership of public-private-tertiary sector and academic world. Activities: The activities started with a needs analysis phase, which highlighted the innovative nature of the training proposed by the project, in particular "While there are some postgraduate courses in the UK that address the themes of sustainability and social policy , We have found only one training program that explicitly unites the social enterprise with the development of sport and management, and this is aimed at entrepreneurs and is based in Melbourne, Australia. " In the second phase, partners developed the training package and conducted training in each country. As a fundamental part of this training course, a five-day mobility was organized in Romania (October 2016), attended by over 50 young people from Italy, Romania, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The results of these pilotings were collected by partners to build the main products of the project: The Code of Conduct for a Social Sports Company (developed in consultation with young participants) and the Roadmap Paper. Results: The project's results were excellent: more than 50 young people trained in 4 countries in managing social sports. The feedback from the participants was very positive and emphasized the innovativeness and opportunities created for the realization of self-entrepreneurship. Long-term Benefits: The benefits that can be expected for the long term are the collaborations generated by the project and the projects born in the young participants. In Italy, two groups of young participants are pursuing two projects of a social sports enterprise.