The experiences of young people in rural areas are somewhat different from those of their urban counterparts. This is confirmed when it comes to employment conditions and opportunities in the transition phase from school to work: rural labour markets record the lowest employment rate among young people (15-24 years old - Eurostat, 2017) and are characterised by low skilled and insecure employment. Unsurprisingly, this causes loss of human capital and geographical mobility ("brain drain") to big cities, with serious consequences not only for youth but also for rural territories and the EU society as a whole (GDP loss, weakening of social cohesion, loss of human capital). OECD studies (2017) confirm there is substantial potential to combat youth unemployment and increase labour market participation by facilitating business creation. The ambitious and innovative objective of CRAFT project is to leverage on a number of real and perceived advantages which may attract people to live in/stay in EU rural areas, as confirmed also during the successfull Erasmus+ initiative "Youth reworking rural" (https://youthreworking.eu), thus promoting entrepreneurship among young people in EU rural areas by providing them the fundamentals to setup - within reconverted empty spaces - collaborative working environments which will be hinged on some of the key trends affecting the future labour market, namely the demographic change, the climate change and the technological change (see also the results of "Future Time Traveller" Erasmus+ project http://future-time-traveller.eu/). The core idea is to make those coworking spots act as future skills' propulsor engines rather than as aseptic work hangouts, around 3 sectors which are crucial towards the pursue of the European smart, sustainable and inclusive development: - personal care and health-related jobs and services; - green economy; - science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics STE(A)M. The project will be implemented by a complementary partnership composed by 7 organisations from 7 different EU countries. The initiative will be directly addressed to more than 50 young people (18-25 years old) of rural territories involved in the project, as well as to mentors, counsellors, co-working managers, who will be involved in specific activities. Moreover, the whole local socio-economic system and its relevant stakeholders will be positively impacted by the project. CRAFT Project, in order to materialise its objectives and produce its deliverables, comprises a set of intellectual outputs, one learning activity and several multiplier events , supported by management activities and dissemination and exploitation activities that will ensure the use of its results even after the project has ended. The C activity and multiplier events will constitute the core of the project as they will allow groups of young people to put ideas into practice; by creating collaborative workspaces for the future but virtually and as physical prototypes. Moreover, project foresees the production, use, evaluation and promotion of 4 intellectual outputs: IO1 - Training programme for builders of future-looking collaborative work environments in rural areas; IO2 - Educational 3D virtual world- CRAFT VW Platform; IO3 - E-book for a forward-looking management of coworking spaces; IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers. All intellectual outputs will be uploaded on the website and made available to target groups, partners, associate partners and external stakeholders during and beyond the life of the project. IO 2- Educational 3D virtual world will be open to customization in the form of expanding the pedagogical and learning tasks where new features and scripts can be implemented based on the openness of the underlying platform; while IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers will remain active and will be further expanded. Co-working spaces prototypes will remain visible to external stakeholders interested in further investing in co-working models. The dissemination activities will be designed ad hoc for the new virtual generation and to assure transferability and sustainability of products and results. Instragram, You Tube and the FB page will be the core of the dissemination strategy. Partners commit themselves to further invest in co-working creation and improvement and to create a bridge between young people and potential investors to make sure that, at least some of the ideas developed, could become real collaborative work spaces in the next future.
CRAFT intended: - to promote employment and entrepreneurship in EU rural areas by increasing young people capabilities to reconvert empty spaces so to host collaborative working environments, exploiting the substantial potential offered by trends outlined in the jobs and skills future market; - to promote youth skills and competencies for the development of co-working spaces focused on the abovementioned 3 specific areas; - to foster youth ability and autonomy to operate at transnational level for developing joint concrete projects; - to strengthen a digital mindset among youngsters to effectively tackle the European Skills Deal post-2020; - to empower youth through the setup of win-win networks involving relevant socio-economic actors as policy change-makers; - to improve career guidance services through specific recommendations; - to boost international cooperation (beyond the partner countries) in the Youth field, contributing to the achievement of relevant EU objectives; - to develop innovative models to shape coworking spaces and setup competitive entrepreneurial ideas; - to back the standardization of good skills performances among youth in EU rural areas; - to favour EU-level peer learning between youth and trainers.
The project was rooted into evidences from Eurostat, OECD and ILO showing worrying data with respect to youth unemployment rates in Europe and the impact of this in terms of growth and cohesion of EU societies. Considering that young people face specific challenges in the transition from school to work (being new to the labour market, they often meet discriminations and are less likely to find decent jobs) and that geographical barriers represent one of the major factors affecting that transition, pushing youth towards brain-drain and migration to big cities, CRAFT was intended to tackle those challenges boosting self-entrepreneurial skills and the referred mindset. The project took stock of the human and physical capital of rural areas, subverting the perception of challenges from a perspective of opportunity, promoting forward-looking learning activities (digitalised OERs, transnational mobilities, hackathons) around fundamental entrepreneurship competencies referring to 3 strategic areas: personal care and health-related jobs; green economy; STEAM. The need addressed was thus to combat youth unemployment in rural European areas, increasing the labour market participation of the target by facilitating, in particular, coworking startup.