The population in the European Union is ageing. The proportion of people over age 55 is expected to be approximately 37 % by 2030. The impact on the labour force is reinforced by the ageing of the “baby boom generation”, which is now moving into retirement. This growing population of healthy older people has the skills, financial resources and time available to contribute to economic activity through extending their working lives, including through entrepreneurship. As many seniors have already had successful professional lives, there is often a desire to give back to society and to be useful. The promotion of entrepreneurship among older age segments is a prospective educational option to prolong the working lives of older people, reduce older-age unemployment and enhance the social inclusion of older individuals. Engaging in social entrepreneurship through economic activity while pursuing a social aim and generating self-financing offers is an ideal way for active ageing and for participation in the society. This approach coincided with the Europe 2020 Strategy which put a very clear development path for transferring Europe into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy, and for social cohesion; and proposed the development of the social economy sector. Social enterprises offer a model for a 21st century business that balances financial, social, cultural and environmental needs. Social entrepreneurs are agents of change and passionate about improving the lives of people and communities. However, seniors often need some training on how to start up a business. Despite their broad range of professional experience and knowledge that they have acquired in their professional life, they may not have experience in starting up a company. While there are many training needs that are common between young and senior entrepreneurs, the latter also have unique learning styles, background knowledge and expertise which justify a new and innovative approach to increase social entrepreneurship by older people. The overall objective of our project has been to raise the awareness of the benefits of social entrepreneurship for older people, especially for women since the current participation rate for women is nearly half that of men. To this end, the specific aims have been: • to develop a Senior Social Entrepreneurship Interactive e-Training Course, which has been designed to fill knowledge gaps on entrepreneurship skills for those who have spent their working life as employees (ttps://training.seniorsocial.eu/modules/); • to provide a Practice Guide with a collection of best practice examples on how to establish, run and manage a social enterprise, as well as case studies with practical trouble-shooting examples (https://seniorsocialentrepreneurs.eu/); • to develop a Senior Social Entrepreneurship e-Platform: It will support the delivery of all online tools of the project and also online interactive tools such as forum and social networking applications. It will promote the use of real-time translation and break down the language barrier between users from different countries (https://training.seniorsocial.eu/); • to adapt selected online materials from the e-Training Course and Guidelines and develop integrated native apps for smartphones and mobile devices (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.gunet.seniorsocial). The target groups for our project were adult education providers, labour market advisers and human resource organisations. The final beneficiaries were seniors who were motivated to give back to society and to be useful as social entrepreneurs or as mentors for other social enterprises. The project fitted into the common underlying strategy of the partners insofar as the development of social entrepreneurship materials was in line with their overall research or educational activities and programmes. The transnational cooperation of partners, the majority of them working in social research and/or as vocational training providers, enriched the quality of the results and rendered them immediately applicable for exploitation. The immediate impact, already during the validation phase, has been the transfer of knowledge and skills to approx. 100 senior citizens who were interested to enter the path to social entrepreneurship and to approx. 150 experts and key actors. They have been working with approx. 20,000 clients (job searchers, adult education learners, etc.) each year. After having been involved in the pilot tests, they were able to implement the project’s concept into their regular counselling activities. In the countries of the partnership alone, more than 45.000 persons working as labour office advisers or in similar professions were informed through the guidelines and online platform in their native languages.
This approach is in line with the Europe 2030 Strategy, which sets out a very clear development path for the transfer of Europe to a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy and for social cohesion. One of the proposed solutions supports the development of the social economy sector. Faced with the challenges of an ageing population, rising unemployment and increasing inequalities, Europe needs more social entrepreneurs, and many of them can come from segments of the population in their later life. However, older people often need some training on how to start a business. Despite the wide range of professional experience and knowledge they have acquired in their professional lives, they may not know how to start a business. This justifies a new and innovative approach to increase the social entrepreneurship of older people. The overall aim of our project is to comply with the Europe 2030 Strategy and to raise awareness of the benefits of social entrepreneurship for older people, as well as to create attractive and easily applicable digital materials in adult education to guide their teachers.
Senior Social Entrepreneurship (SSE) wants to respond to a pressing socio-demographic situation of great relevance in today's society. The population of the European Union is ageing. The proportion of people over 55 will reach 37% in 2030 (Eurostat). Inactivity in older age groups increases the pressure on social security and pension systems. This growing population of healthy older people has the skills, financial resources and time available to contribute to economic activity by prolonging their working lives through entrepreneurship. This is the fundamental context that nurtures the SSE project, which aims to respond to the training needs of an age group where entrepreneurship is not usually a priority. Furthermore, the promotion of the social economy, beyond the purely capitalist philosophy, encourages companies that respect their environment, using endogenous human and material resources, and investing part of the profits in the improvement of the territory where they are located. This project aims to disseminate this philosophy and create digital educational materials in this direction.
The population in the European Union is ageing. The proportion of people over age 55 is expected to be approximately 37 % by 2030. The impact on the labour force is reinforced by the ageing of the “baby boom generation”, which is now moving into retirement. This growing population of healthy older people has the skills, financial resources and time available to contribute to economic activity through extending their working lives, including through entrepreneurship. As many seniors have already had successful professional lives, there is often a desire to give back to society and to be useful. The promotion of entrepreneurship among older age segments is a prospective educational option to prolong the working lives of older people, reduce older-age unemployment and enhance the social inclusion of older individuals. Engaging in social entrepreneurship through economic activity while pursuing a social aim and generating self-financing offers is an ideal way for active ageing and for participation in the society. This approach coincided with the Europe 2020 Strategy which put a very clear development path for transferring Europe into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy, and for social cohesion; and proposed the development of the social economy sector. Social enterprises offer a model for a 21st century business that balances financial, social, cultural and environmental needs. Social entrepreneurs are agents of change and passionate about improving the lives of people and communities. However, seniors often need some training on how to start up a business. Despite their broad range of professional experience and knowledge that they have acquired in their professional life, they may not have experience in starting up a company. While there are many training needs that are common between young and senior entrepreneurs, the latter also have unique learning styles, background knowledge and expertise which justify a new and innovative approach to increase social entrepreneurship by older people. The overall objective of our project has been to raise the awareness of the benefits of social entrepreneurship for older people, especially for women since the current participation rate for women is nearly half that of men. To this end, the specific aims have been: • to develop a Senior Social Entrepreneurship Interactive e-Training Course, which has been designed to fill knowledge gaps on entrepreneurship skills for those who have spent their working life as employees (ttps://training.seniorsocial.eu/modules/); • to provide a Practice Guide with a collection of best practice examples on how to establish, run and manage a social enterprise, as well as case studies with practical trouble-shooting examples (https://seniorsocialentrepreneurs.eu/); • to develop a Senior Social Entrepreneurship e-Platform: It will support the delivery of all online tools of the project and also online interactive tools such as forum and social networking applications. It will promote the use of real-time translation and break down the language barrier between users from different countries (https://training.seniorsocial.eu/); • to adapt selected online materials from the e-Training Course and Guidelines and develop integrated native apps for smartphones and mobile devices (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gr.gunet.seniorsocial). The target groups for our project were adult education providers, labour market advisers and human resource organisations. The final beneficiaries were seniors who were motivated to give back to society and to be useful as social entrepreneurs or as mentors for other social enterprises. The project fitted into the common underlying strategy of the partners insofar as the development of social entrepreneurship materials was in line with their overall research or educational activities and programmes. The transnational cooperation of partners, the majority of them working in social research and/or as vocational training providers, enriched the quality of the results and rendered them immediately applicable for exploitation. The immediate impact, already during the validation phase, has been the transfer of knowledge and skills to approx. 100 senior citizens who were interested to enter the path to social entrepreneurship and to approx. 150 experts and key actors. They have been working with approx. 20,000 clients (job searchers, adult education learners, etc.) each year. After having been involved in the pilot tests, they were able to implement the project’s concept into their regular counselling activities. In the countries of the partnership alone, more than 45.000 persons working as labour office advisers or in similar professions were informed through the guidelines and online platform in their native languages.