As young people are facing high unemployment rates and possible climate disaster, it is important that they feel empowered and like they can make a difference and contribute towards a better and more sustainable community. This project aims to develop and introduce innovation into learning and teaching materials on the topic of social entrepreneurship, linking it to environmental and climate matters and to other valuable skills, while using gamification and making learning materials freely available in an online platform. This is a project about providing innovative, open and free learning and teaching resources. The goal is to introduce young people to entrepreneurship social entrepreneurship in general (with mentions of current policies in Europe regarding youth unemployment & social enterprises), while also increasing awareness on environmental and climate matters, teaching valuable skills. Such will be done through making materials available online (in a printable format), which use gamification practices, including a board game. In order to provide such an online platform populated by learning and teaching materials, not only will there be testing of the platform itself, but extensive testing of the materials as well. Workshops, trainings and other learning events will be conducted in the countries of the organisations involved to make sure that the materials developed are of high quality and effective with students regardless of their status, country, etc. Through the project it is expected that approximately 100 young people, (including some socio-economically marginalised) will have the opportunity to be directly involved in innovative learning and teaching related to improvement of various environmental and sustainability issues in relation to social entrepreneurship methodology. Apart from the young people, it is expected that more than 20 youth workers/non-formal educators will be directly involved in the project through participation in the workshops and testing of the developed innovative tool. The organisations involved in this project have been carrying out learning events in the past, but have been limited by their own location and subsequent reach to young people. To make these materials available online would mean to expand their reach and to possibly start affecting thousands of young people. To promote the rise of social entrepreneurship that aims to move us towards more sustainable communities and lifestyles. This project wants to promote learning about social entrepreneurship and more, but to do so in a way that is fun for young people and engages with them effectively.
The overall objective was thus to produce a unique and innovative online platform populated by materials proven to stimulate and empower young people to become more active in their community and fostering social entrepreneurship. These materials (after-school activities, exercises, board game and lesson plans) revolve topics of environment, climate and sustainable living/practices, promote English learning, and aim to help develop valuable skills such as creative problem-solving, logic, and collaborative solutions .
Society is facing the prospect of environmental and climatic changes on a level that has quite possibly not been seen since the Pleistocene. Young people are having to face this context at the same time as they have the prospect of high youth unemployment rates and, for some of them, socio-economic marginalization. It is within this context that it becomes important to provide young people with the right tools and to empower them towards sustainable and environmentally conscientious social entrepreneurship. This empowerment of social entrepreneurship is then coupled with aiming towards developing skills that will aid them in the job market. The project were thus target the needs of young people to have more tools and knowledge on how to face youth unemployment by way of social entrepreneurship (and possibly self employment), foreign language development, and development of valuable workplace skills. This is an approach towards the needs of young people that also benefits the communities and future workplaces they are a part of. These needs are met thanks to learning materials that are made to be fun and innovative so that the young peoples’ experience is positive and they actively want to engage.