The latest study by the EU Commission "Taking the future in their own hands - youth work and entrepreneurial training" shows where there is an acute need for action in youth welfare and youth work. According to her statement "the role of youth work in fostering entrepreneurial learning has been underexposed up until today". The 6 partners of the project, from 6 countries in Europe, took the opportunity to enter a three-year partnership to build up a strong network that provides peer learning with common answers to the question of how to help young people to learn their self-efficacy and to actively participate in social life. The partners from Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium and Germany bring with them all the experience in the context of education of young people in entrepreneurial thinking and acting. However, within the framework of the partner network to be formed, the approach of social entrepreneurship is brought to the fore. There is an ever greater trend in the start up scene, which has already arrived in the established economy. If the youth work wants to stay up to date, then it has to orient itself directly to the innovation in this area. In addition, the priorities of the European Youth Strategy are full, to promote solidarity and to take social responsibility for society. The topic of entrepreneurship also covers equal access to the labor market as a further aspect of the youth strategy. The task of youth work is to make the knowledge about the chances and risks of entrepreneurial activity accessible to all young people, irrespective of their social or geographical origin. In 3 years, the project partners plan 6 international project meetings as well as 3 international trainings for 72 youth workers in order to train themselves in a collegial manner and to work on this challenge of access for all young people on this important topic of the EU study. The aim is to strengthen and expand the network, which is currently growing around the entrepreneurial education. A further focus is given by the partners bringing their combined expertise around "green" professions. The green sector offers great opportunities for the creation of enterprises, especially in the disadvantaged, rural regions of Europe, which are thus strengthened in a targeted manner. The young people have their future in their own hands. We have the passion for giving them additional tools to grab and shape this future safely.
The EU Commission study "Taking the future in their own hands - youth work and entrepreneurial training" showed the project partners where, in their view, there was an acute need for action in youth welfare and youth work. The project was specifically concerned with countering the study's finding "the role of youth work in promoting entrepreneurial learning ... still underexposed today" with concrete jointly developed and tested educational formats. During the three-year partnership, the focus was mainly on getting to know the existing offers and the joint modification of the educational formats. In each country, rooms (incubators) created by the institutions for entrepreneurial schooling and support of young people were visited and two new physical locations (S-Hub Mannheim in Germany and "Business Incubator" in Karviná in the Czech Republic) were created. The planned accelerator programmes for social entrepreneurship, e.g. Business Gate in the Czech Republic or S-Hub Accelerator in Germany and others in Belgium, Italy and Croatia, were shared by the partners or, as in Mannheim, were newly developed with a European perspective. A particular success is that more than 5 start-ups of the target group have already been launched during the project period and the approach to help young people to become self-effective and to get new job perspectives has been successful. The festivals in Poland and the Czech Republic were implemented with the local partners and further cooperation and opening of the festivals to each other was achieved. The European orientation of the festivals has been successfully established and will continue to exist due to its added value. While the festivals were very successful in addressing young people from the target group of refugees as well as young people with a migration background, it was difficult for all partners for the support programmes for entrepreneurs. Despite networking and opening up, only Belgium and Italy were successful. The partners have intensively discussed the factors for success and it remains a clear goal to continue to pursue the youth strategy in terms of leading to entrepreneurial thinking and acting in this direction for all. The task remains, therefore, to make the now expanded knowledge on this subject accessible to all young people, irrespective of their social or geographical background. Over the course of the project, the topic of social entrepreneurship has been strongly supplemented by the topic of "green professions". The Start4Change project was absolutely in line with the spirit of the times with the topic of ecological sustainable action and has taken advantage of it. This resulted in new ventures by young people as well as initiatives and projects of the institutions. During the 3 years the partners have realised 6 international project meetings as well as 3 international trainings for youth workers as planned and have continued their training as colleagues. The goal of strengthening and expanding the network around the topic of entrepreneurial thinking and acting as an offer for ALL young people was achieved. The young people have their future in their own hands. We have the passion to give them additional tools to be able to grasp and shape this future with confidence. The Start4Change project has made us partners strong and has further supplemented the toolbox.