Eurostat’s latest figures show that in July 2017, 3.792 million young persons were unemployed in the EU28, of whom 2.670 million were in the euro area. A potential solution to tackle unemployment, as well as to ensure sustainable growth and development, is to foster an entrepreneurial culture and mindset. It is important for youngster to access affordable knowledge and positive examples to up-skill adding social perspective to their existing or planned business. Europe also has to open up paths into entrepreneurship for groups that are underrepresented among business founders, such as young unemployed people, migrants, socially, geographically, or economically disadvantaged groups, who need to be empowered to be able to use their creative capacities. The flowering of genuine and socially responsible entrepreneurship in urban areas facing social and economic challenges, is impeded by a number of familiar cultural, educational, and financial constraints. One of the most formidable obstacles to unleashing of the entrepreneurial talents and energies of the youth from these areas is the dearth of creative and inspiring role models, who, while building flourishing businesses, have also managed to solve pressing social problems and make a difference in the lives of others. Supporting entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial mindset through role modeling and exemplary leadership constitute some of the most effective ways of laying the foundations for the attainment and sustenance of economic and social development and vibrant entrepreneurial communities. ‘My Social Role’ project is predicated on the premise that insufficient knowledge and exposure to the existence and accomplishments of innovative business and social entrepreneurs, who are creating value not simply for themselves but making contributions to the societies in which they operate, is a major hurdle to awakening of entrepreneurial energies and promotion of economic development and diversity. The project aims at providing innovative and flexible ways for young people to get involved in entrepreneurial and social learning, enabling them to act as a force for change in their local communities and in wider society, and thus to overcome deprivation, inequality, educational disadvantage and social exclusion. ‘My Social Role’ addresses young people from urban areas facing social, economic or geographical challenges, aged 16-29, including NEETs and such with migrant background, with the aim to contribute to cultivate and enhance youth social thinking and confidence, to developing their social and emotional skills, business capacity and deepen community connections, and to reduce the opportunity gap for disadvantaged youth. The project is intended to develop a culture of initiative among young people, improve their skills and help them realise their first enterprising ideas. Activities are planned in four steps: the first step is to inspire the young people; the second is to teach them practical skills; the third is to help them network; and the fourth is to show new horizons. The project activities include: - Selecting and promoting role models of young social entrepreneurs and developing digital stories/short films of them - Developing a practical guide of patterns and trends for youth social entrepreneurship - Creating and piloting “Social Café” model for sharing social skills and entrepreneurial ideas - Creating and reinforcing an online platform for youth’s interaction, communication and meaningful information about opportunities with social entrepreneurship - Organising a contest among youth for entrepreneurial idea with social impact. The main project results (both during the project lifetime and after its end) are: - Enhanced ability of young people in urban areas facing social and economic challenges to influence the future of their society and their own opportunities; - Increased and further strengthened understanding for “social entrepreneurship” as an entrepreneurial model among young people; - Improved motivation and confidence of youth to consider careers in social entrepreneurship in different economic and life sectors; - Increased sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; - Effective methodology for high-quality youth work based on combination of role models and digital storytelling, changing the attitudes towards social entrepreneurship; - Created and proven model for social entrepreneurship - activity hub for sharing social skills and entrepreneurial ideas of youth; - Knowledge and experience gained by partner organisations in the field of transnational cooperation, project management, innovative practices to inspire and involve youth into “social entrepreneurship”. My Social role outcomes will be designed and available as free on line resources so that, in practical terms, they are open for use at any level - local, regional, national, European and international, which is prerequisite for sustainability.
Eurostat’s figures show that in July 2017, 3.792 million young persons were unemployed in the EU28, of whom 2.670 million were in the euro area. A potential solution to tackle unemployment, as well as to ensure sustainable growth and development, is to foster an entrepreneurial culture and mindset. It is important for youngsters to access affordable knowledge and positive examples to up-skill adding social perspective to their existing or planned business. Europe also has to open up paths into entrepreneurship for groups that are underrepresented among business founders, such as young unemployed people, migrants, socially, geographically, or economically disadvantaged groups, who need to be empowered to be able to use their creative capacities. ‘My Social Role’ project is predicated on the premise that insufficient knowledge and exposure to the existence and accomplishments of innovative business and social entrepreneurs, who are creating value not simply for themselves but making contributions to the societies in which they operate, is a major hurdle to awakening of entrepreneurial energies and promotion of economic development and diversity. The project aims at providing innovative and flexible ways for young people to get involved in entrepreneurial and social learning, enabling them to act as a force for change in their local communities and in wider society, and thus to overcome deprivation, inequality, educational disadvantage and social exclusion. ‘My Social Role’ addresses young people from urban areas facing social, economic or geographical challenges, aged 16-29, including NEETs and such with migrant background, with the aim to contribute to cultivate and enhance youth social thinking and confidence, to develop their social and emotional skills, business capacity and deepen community connections, and to reduce the opportunity gap for disadvantaged youth. The project creates an innovative model to develop a culture of initiative among young people, improve their skills and help them realise their first enterprising ideas. Project approach compromised a communicative competence model: embedding the target groups in the development of the products, mentoring: partners and role models in all countries provided practical help and guidance to the young people for gathering entrepreneurial ideas with social impact, and digital innovation: storytelling and film making as a method to involving and inspiring people. This approach covers the different perspectives of young people involvement process, and turned it into a prerequisite for immediate testing and implementation and future sustainability. My Social Role project’s results and achievements include: - Complex set for promoting role models in social entrepreneurship - 15 profiles/vignettes of successful social entrepreneurs from Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and Turkey, and 6 short films telling digitally the stories of the most inspiring role models; - ‘Stepping Stones, your guide into becoming a social entrepreneur’ - a toolbox of innovation methods for youth social entrepreneurship mapping the process of developing skills, supported by information and resources; - Developed and tested “Social Café” model of social entrepreneurship activity hub to integrate social and study activities fostering initiative, entrepreneurial competencies and social values among young people, piloted in 28 events with 252 target group representatives; - My Social Role Contest for entrepreneurial idea with social impact, organised with 72 participants, 60 ideas gathered in the preparation stage, and 30 of them considered for participating in the contest; - www.mysocialrole.eu - freely accessible, high quality, multidevice online platform providing space and tools to introduce and involve youth in social entrepreneurship; - Effective methodology and tools for high-quality youth work with captured lessons shared by young social entrepreneurs across Europe. The project fostered stronger links between young people facing social, economic or geographical challenges, successful or aspiring social entrepreneurs, professionals and volunteers who interact with disadvantaged youth in the partner countries and beyond, to achieve the expected results and ensure the desired impact and sustainability of the project contributing to changing the attitudes towards entrepreneurial thinking and learning. It developed high quality products and put them in the hands of young people, youth workers, training providers and organisations supporting youth inclusion and social entrepreneurship to use them for the purposes of inclusive education and actions in the long run. Project activities have been implemented by a consortium of 8 partners from 5 European countries (NL, BG, ES, RO, TR) and the European Network EURORESO (IT), all having significant and complementary expertise in development and promotion of high quality outputs and their mainstreaming in the partner countries and beyond.