The origin of this Project called “ECO – CHALLENGE: YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ENVIRONMENTAL AND INTERCULTURAL LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY” can be found in a previous diagnosis carried out by the organizations that are part of this Project, where a need of fostering youth entrepreneurship has been detected, from a perspective of sustainability linked to the environment and the interculturality. Facing the current deterioration of the environment, the challenge is that not only individuals but also institutions act in a sustainable way. We need to urgently acquire an ecological knowledge and behaviour that allow us to develop our life styles without growing more than our limits. Being conscious of that, we consider as essential, to promote the environmental and intercultural education for a sustainable development. In turn, every partner of the project has detected and confirmed that, as official statistics have shown, it exists an evident exodus of young people towards the city, producing a real rural abandonment with a worrying depopulation. That is why this project is aimed to give a response to this troublesome issue and give a strong value to the potentialities of the rural areas, as opportunities for the youth that want to undertake projects. Additionally, we have detected a lack of training for the promotion of entrepreneurship and the creativity among youth workers, being that fact one of the topics that we want to deal with in this project. In this sense, the Project has as a very important objective, to start up 4 information points for the youth entrepreneurship and the creativity (“Youth Entrepreneurship and Creativity Info Point”) in the country of origin of every partner. These new spaces aim to be reference places for those young people interested in the sustainable entrepreneurship. Young talented, passionate and committed for the change people will find here the necessary resources to start their entrepreneur projects or carry on with the ones that they have already started. Besides the creation of these “info points”, the project will have as another objective, to promote sustainability among future entrepreneurs, aiming to improve the natural surroundings and the people’s quality of life while an economic value is created through the sustainable entrepreneurship from an intercultural and environmental education perspective in order to create a more tolerant, inclusive and respectful society to strengthen the cohesion within the European Union. At the time of setting any entrepreneur project with young people interested in it, they will be made aware of the 17 Objectives for the Sustainable Development established in the “2030 Sustainable Development Agenda” by the United Nations. We hope that all the projects aimed to be carried out by new entrepreneurs will be developed according and in coherence with the 17 Sustainable Development objectives. It is expected in the Project to reach the following objectives: - To start up 4 information points for the promotion of Youth Entrepreneurship and the creativity (“Youth Entrepreneurship and Creativity Info Point”). - To carry out 2 training specific actions to instruct workers in the field of youth entrepreneurship, business spirit, creativity, innovation, environmental and intercultural education, sustainability and sustainable growing in order to support those four “info points”. - To carry out four “JOB SHADOWING” training actions among the project participants. - To develop and publish 4 materials linked to the project theme and with pedagogical usefulness for those workers in the field of youth. In the Project’s implementation, we will use an innovative methodology called “Learning – Service”. This is a methodology oriented to the education for the citizenship, inspired in some active methodologies and compatible with other educational strategies. This “learning – service” is conceived as a method to link learning (intercultural, environmental, entrepreneurship) and social commitment: learn to be both competent and serviceable to others. It is expected that a total number of 44 people will take part in the project training actions. It is also expected that about 2000 young people will participate directly or indirectly in the project, besides of the volunteers, experts, technicians and responsible from the partner organizations that will be involved in the several stages of the project. In this Project there will participate 4 organizations with a wide experience in local and European level work coming from France, Romania, Italy and Spain. The project will last 24 months and it will begin on the 1st September 2017.
The origin of this project called “ECO-CHALLENGE: YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ENVIRONMENTAL AND INTERCULTURAL LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY” was in the previous diagnosis carried out by the organizations that participated in this project where it was detected the need to promote youth entrepreneurship from a sustainability perspective linked to the environment and interculturality. Four organizations from France, Romania, Italy and Spain participated in the project. At the same time, we were aware of the need that both individuals and institutions must begin to act in a sustainable manner. It is necessary to urgently acquire an “ecological” knowledge and behavior that allows us to develop without growing beyond our limits. Being aware of this, we considered essential to promote Environmental and Intercultural Education for Sustainable Development with the implementation of this project. In addition, the project has sought to put its small grain of sand to respond to the problem of the lack of opportunities for rural youth and to value the potential of the rural environment as an opportunity for young people who want to start an entrepreneurial activity. Therefore, the objectives of this project were: - To awaken entrepreneurial vocations among youth. - To train workers in the youth field to develop innovative strategies in promoting entrepreneurial culture. - To promote creativity, innovation and initiative capacity. - To promote the most active participation of youth. - To promote a new social model based on the principles of sustainability. - To facilitate the understanding of the connection of environmental, social, economic and intercultural processes. - To promote the creation of networks at a European level for the promotion of entrepreneurship. - To combat youth depopulation in rural areas. - To train workers in the youth field to analyze socio-environmental conflicts, in the debate of alternatives and in decision-making, individual and collective. - To favour the extension of “sustainable good practices” in different contexts and cultures. - To promote the implementation at local and European level of projects, programs and initiatives of Environmental and Intercultural Education for sustainability. - To disseminate the Erasmus Plus Program. The project launched 4 Information Points for the Promotion of Youth Entrepreneurship and Creativity in the place of origin of each of the partners. These 4 spaces have been physical and virtual spaces of reference for young people interested in sustainable entrepreneurship and spaces for the promotion of environmental education, the promotion of sustainable development and intercultural learning. In these spaces, an exhaustive promotion of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN has also been made. At the same time, with this project the following learning-training experiences have been carried out: - Two specific training actions in Spain (September 2018) and France (July 2019) to train workers in the field of youth in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship spirit, creativity, innovation, environmental and intercultural education, sustainability and sustainable growth. - Four training activities of “JOB SHADOWING”, one in each of the partner countries in this project (Romania, France, Italy and Spain). On the other hand, the project developed, designed, edited and published 2 Intellectual Products; Publication entitled "TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR FOR A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" with experiences of sustainable entrepreneurs at European level and "DYNAMICS FOR PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, INTERCULTURAL LEARNING AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION AMONG YOUTH". These materials have been available in the Information Points for the promotion of Youth Entrepreneurship and Creativity as a tool for the exchange of good practices and have been distributed and presented in different forums in which the partner entities in this project have participated at the level local highlighting the Erasmus Plus Program. We must also emphasize that in the implementation of the project we have used in several actions an innovative methodology called “Service-Learning”. This project has been conceived at all times as a method to unite learning (intercultural, environmental, entrepreneurs) and social commitment: learn to be competent while being useful to others. As significant data, a total of 44 people have participated in the training activities of this project and directly or indirectly in the project have participated around 2,000 young people, in addition to the volunteers, experts, technicians and managers of the partner entities that have been involved in the different phases of the project.