BACKGROUND: EUROPE 2020 states that growth has to be delivered through strong emphasis on job creation and poverty reduction. Social entrepreneurship (SE) is exactly new method to be used to overcome existing challenges as main aim of social entrepreneurship is to bring - positive impact in the youth sector. In the "Social economy and social entrepreneurship"' Social Europe Guide Volume 4 ( 2013) it is said that several key challenges of Social economy (build be SE) are found and those are: lack of visibility; lack of specialized training; lack of support network and infrastructure; access to finance.5 organizations developed idea to have a better educational and overall support for SE in Baltic states for social business youth sector. Specific OBJECTIVES:- Support alternative financing ways of youth social businesses in Baltic sea countries;- To spread the idea of social entrepreneurship in Baltic states (LV, EE, LT) within youth sector; - Provide the necessary competencies and support tools enable young people to develop social business ideas at regional, national or international level;- Initiate further process with existing business incubators cooperation with youth NGO’s and youth centres for possible mechanisms how to facilitate development social business incubation for youth and the support and develop guidelines;- Promote social entrepreneurship idea as positive trend to the society;- Introduce with "Art-ups" and the creative - social entrepreneurship as one of possible ways for young people to start own social business;- Encourage young people in innovative and creative thinking, collaborate and take risk; - To promote good practices among local and international partners to achieve sustainable, collaborative, social business support within youth sector.TARGET GROUP:Project intends to work mainly with youth target group to maximise the effect, ensuring that complex approach towards SE stimulation in Baltic region, is efficient. We specifically aim at regional youth. Youth centres and NGO’s are secondary target group.Public sector will be involved to get in policy formation sense.ACTIVITIES: ACTIVITY 1 Recommendations for youth centres and youth organizations “How to facilitate development social business incubation for youth”. Guidelines intends to identify what mechanisms exist in Baltic Sea region countries to support SE business incubation in youth sector, what is efficiency of these methods, how to support youth SE incubation through youth centres and youth organizations. The gained results will be presented and distributed at national level, to point out most efficient SE support in youth sector. Research methods: Content analysis, interviews if applicable and case studies.ACTIVITY 2 Crowd-funding platform for youth social ideas. Activity will offer financial support and networking possibilities for youth in Baltic countries, interested in social business.RESULTS:1 recommendations/guidelines document developed “How to facilitate development social business incubation for youth” in cooperation with business incubators network of Baltic countries for further SE support activities in youth sector. At least 12 feedbacks to be collected.1 practical, intensive workshop- training, 5 days long will be organized in Latvia with participants from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. In total at least 30 participants will develop first 30 social business ideas to publish in crowd-funding platform.1 platform adapted with 30 youth social business ideas in Baltic countries.3 forums organized in each of the Baltic country, each gaining at least 35 participants from youth sector to share best ideas. In total 105 participants in all 3 Baltic countries.BENEFITS: We foresee that at Baltic region benefits will be:- Improvement of SE support and promotion in youth sector;- Availability of new financing tool;- Improvement of networking facilities to allow more effective co-operation between organizations involved in work with SE and cross-border;- Better supported methods of SE from youth centres and youth organizations, after proper use of recommendations/guidelines created;- Development of ES economy in Baltic region.
Social entrepreneurs drive social innovation and transformation in various fields including education, health, environment and enterprise development. Since 2011, social entrepreneurship (SE) started its active spotlighting in the political area, it is not so well developed within Baltic countries. Main objective – support of youth within Baltic sea region, especially Baltic states to develop ideas for social business start-ups, promote recognition of existing youth SE and gain best practices from European social entrepreneur’s network. Specific OBJECTIVES: - Support alternative financing ways of youth social businesses in Baltic sea countries; - To spread the idea of social entrepreneurship in Baltic states (LV, EE, LT) within youth sector; - Provide the necessary competencies and support tools enable young people to develop social business ideas at regional, national or international level; - Initiate further process with existing business incubators cooperation with youth NGO’s and youth centres for possible mechanisms how to facilitate development social business incubation for youth and the support and develop guidelines; - Introduce with "Art-ups" as one of possible ways for young people to start own social business; - Encourage young people in innovative and creative thinking, collaborate and take risk; - To promote good practices among local and international partners to achieve sustainable, collaborative, social business support within youth sector. Number and profile of participating organizations: The selection of partners was based on the 2 major factors: first – geographical location: most partners has to represent one of the Baltic see countries; second: competence and interest factor – partners are active in social business promotion and youth or active youth support organization in the region, has considerable experience with creative practice turned to the social disadvantage and promotion of the social and civic growth. Project was executed in cooperation of 5 project partners – 3 from Baltic states and 2 organizations with experience in social business support (incubation, acceleration and providing of training) and work with marginalized areas with social strains (isolation, unemployment, racial integration). To get better expertise within social business incubation in youth sector, 2 representatives from each Baltic partner organization took part in short term joint staff training in Paris. ACTIVITIES: Several activities have been executed during the project: intelellectual outputs, training activities, joint staff trainings and dissemination evets. The aim of developed handbook for youth organizations ''How to facilitate development social business incubation for youth'' (IO1) was to provide an insight into the structure of youth organizations in Baltic countries. The guidelines target the Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian youth engagement opportunities and trends with a view to analyze the youth interest in the promotion of SE. Guidelines also provides results of questionnaire of youth organizations in all Baltic countries, as well as show the partner’s countries good practices in youth social business ideas’ support and development and provides practical material on the support mechanisms and methodologies. In intensive 5 days training – social business accelerator in Latvia 30 young people from Baltic states were led through business development process under supervision and mentoring of best specialists in the field and were introduced with practical examples. One of the main activities were development of first crowd-funding platform for Baltic’s youth social business ideas www.impactyouth.eu For dissemination of project results 3 forums were organized in each of the Baltic country, to present project results and initiate discussions about possible cooperation between social business incubators and youth centers. IMPACT, BENEFITS AND RESULTS. Main impact of the project was and still is activation of SE business around Baltic countries due to better educational support via provided activities by establishment of closer cooperation and network of partner organizations, youth organizations and established cooperation with social business support organizations to foster social business around Baltic countries in youth sector. Tangible results, such as gained practical knowledge in incubation and trainings, guidelines for youth organizations and alternative funding tool will increase number of SE startups in youth sector in each country. The strongest sustainable effect is the platform, where ideas of social business are inserted by youth. The created platform has to serve a further networking and financial support mechanism and partners will continue work on promotion of platform as well as attraction of strategic partners. Furthermore, project long term benefits are indicated recommendations for youth social business development, developed as a part of guidelines.