The main TARGET GROUP of the project are adult artisans, no matter if they already have, intend to have or got the potential to have a business in the field or producing traditional arts & crafts. Since marginalised groups are mostly affected by the needs mentioned below, we are also going to reach geographically, economically, or socially disadvantaged artisans with our activities. The project relies on NEEDS discovered both at European, national and regional levels, more exactly on statistics, studies and priorities, and a survey conducted within the partnership to discover the needs of the target groups. Based on these studies we discovered the main problems that the creative and cultural sector is fighting with: - they lack business education and transversal skills, which makes them unable to support themselves on a long turn; - digital technologies have changed the cultural and creative industries, artisans with low digital skills being in danger of loseing their income; - there is a low demand for traditional handmade products and services, so traditional cultures are being more and more forgotten by the new generations, being in danger to disappear; - most of the artisans are rather self-employed or sell their products with no legal status, so they must develop by self-study and self-discipline. The project proposed to reach 3 OBJECTIVES: - strengthen the position of artisans on the market by increasing their digital competences and strategies, entrepreneurial and leadership skills, managerial and sales knowledge; - strengthen the career pathways of artisans by increasing their motivation and capacity to become legal entities and successful business owners; - promote the traditional culture and traditional arts and crafts products by broadening the horizon and network of artisans and by promoting the use of online opportunities to sell arts & crafts products. These objectives will be reached by several main ACTIVITIES, such as undertaking joint staff training events, developing an Intellectual Output and Dissemination and Exploitation activities. Undertaking these activities will provoke RESULTS both at organisational, local and European levels. From all these results, the most important ones are those on our main target groups. Artisans will benefit of having: a much wider network and the possibility to internationalise their services (eg. trade workshops) and products (traditional arts & crafts products); better access to information (eg. news, events, laws, learning materials shared on the social media group); increased knowledge about other EU countries and societies but also a wider knowledge of the needs of clients; increased project planning, writing, and management skills; improved digital skills, such as digital marketing; digital business strategies; digital tools for management; digital sales and public relation campaigns; improved transversal competencies such as leadership, awareness, entrepreneurship, self-confidence; increased motivation to work under legal conditions. All these results will impact the future of the involved artisans and their environment, leading to a more qualitative offer of cultural products; better outreach of clients, increased sales and income, and overall more possibilities to preserve the traditional culture. The project will also develop an INTELLECTUAL OUTPUT, namely a set of 6 training modules dedicated to traditional arts & crafts makers in the following main topics: 1. Planning a business; 2. Online tools for time, team and financial management; 3. Project management; 4. Digital marketing and promotion; 5. Sales and public relations; 6. Entrepreneurship and leadership. The training modules will contain two different types of materials: - video tutorials, during which specialists will put the basis to participants as regards the specific topic-related theoretical aspects, they will provide specific examples, and supply information about completing topic-related tasks; - self-study and auxiliary materials such as templates, examples, guidelines - which will be meant to offer further support to the end-users and to further develop their practical skills in that particular topic.
The objectives of the project were responding to the needs mentioned above and were the following: - to strengthen the position of artisans on the market by increasing their KSA (knowledge, skills and abilities) in the fields that are crucial for a business in this field; - to support artisans without legal status to have the capacity to start a business in the field and increase their awareness about the benefits of being business owners; - to promote artisans and artisan products, therefore contributing to the promotion of traditional culture.
'Opportunities 4 Arts & Crafts' relied on the needs discovered both by the partner institutes and by different researches at EU level in the field of creative businesses. More exactly, the project focused on the dangers that the creative sector businesses are facing, namely: the lack of business education in the creative sector, especially when it comes to SMEs; the lack of knowledge and competences of business owners from the creative sector, especially digital competences which nowadays are crucial for the survival of a business (digital business management, digital marketing, digital sales and promotion); the lack of support and initiatives aimed to the target groups of the project (artisans or artisans to be).