PROMoting Youth Social Entrepreneurship

Project summary

At a critical point for Europe when youth unemployment continues to rise, IARS has put together a strategic partnership of familiar and no so familiar to Erasmus organisations to run PROMYSE as a youth-led, transnational project that will enhance the quality and relevance of the learning offer in education, training and youth work by: - developing a new, innovate and youth-led course for young prospective social entrepreneurs (with an emphasis on NEETS), and - supporting the adoption of best practices in promoting social entrepreneurship in the health and social care fields. Therefore, the first Sectoral Priority (YOUTH) to be addressed will be 'Promoting entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship among young people'. Encouraging entrepreneurship for youth is part of the European Reference Framework on Key Competences, while the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament in 2015 stressed the role of Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation in combating unemployment. Social entrepreneurial competences, such as business and strategic planning with a social dimension, will be the main pillar of the capacity building course curriculum to be developed for the young potential entrepreneurs within the scope of PROMYSE. Elements of entrepreneurship education such as marketing and promotion will form part of the course curriculum. Social entrepreneurship constitutes a flourishing field of work, which not only facilitates entering into the labour market, but also doing so contributes to the community’s well-being by solving pressing social issues of the society, generating a positive return in society. PROMYSE seeks to exploit this advantage by (re)skilling youth accordingly to actively join this field. The project will provide the young participants with the fundamental skills, knowledge, tools and mind-sets to put “their entrepreneurial ideas into practice”, while serving the community as well. Following this approach, challenges in the participating countries, which may have come as a result of persisting socio-economic crises, can be tackled in the long term with the introduction of new health and social care services, designed and applied by the young participants of the project. PROMYSE essentially grants a unique opportunity for young people to contribute to their communities while advancing their own career needs. The second Sectoral Priority (YOUTH) is 'Promoting high-quality youth work, particularly in the processes related to youth development'. The project partners, active in the youth work field, will gain considerable insight on identifying and analyzing the needs of youth, especially with regards to education and training, and will build their internal capacities to better meet those needs. The project lays down activities that intend to satisfy the needs of young NEETS, setting fertile ground for applying their creativity and initiative. In this sense, partners are implicated in crucial youth work aiming at engaging with youth to deal with issues like unemployment, low educational attainment and social exclusion. The Role of Youth work is stressed in the EU Youth Strategy, which stipulates that youth work “contributes to all fields of action [of the Strategy] and their identified objectives”. Youth work is elevated in PROMYSE by the increased capacities of the organisations as a consequent of implementing the activities but at the same time promoting employability of young people in this sector while providing recognition of the skills for conducting this work in a transnational framework (Youthpass and CPD Accreditation). The project equips young people with the necessary skills to get involved in youth work themselves, since the health and social care sector is a field directly related to improving the conditions of subsistence for children and young people. Finally, the project will address Horizontal Priority 'Open and innovative practices in a digital era', by developing and providing a modern, integrated and holistic e-learning and networking platform, tailor-made to the needs of young prospective social entrepreneurs. This will allow them to develop and enhance their social entrepreneurship and business skills; improve their understanding in social entrepreneurship principles and community needs in the field of health and social care; and identify social entrepreneurship and collaboration opportunities. At the same time the e-platform will provide the young beneficiaries will then open area where they can create informal and formal cooperative networks interact with each other, exchange concerns, ideas, experiences and seek opportunities of collaboration on a European level. The innovative aspect of the developed e-platform will be enhanced by utilizing the game theory, integrating game mechanics and elements that generate higher engagement and increased adoption rate by the target group.