BACKGROUND AND CURRENT SETTING More than 3.3 million young people (aged 18-28 years) were unemployed in EU in 2019. The situation is very likely to worsen with the COVID19 crisis in 2020. In the same time, that crisis has also underlined the need to train people remotely. Entrepreneurship education makes a difference: within alumni those who participated in any entrepreneurship training are 5 times more willing to start entrepreneurship activities. Green entrepreneurship (GE), non-profit activities and circular economy (CE) are interlinked. The importance of CE is continually increasing when creating new green jobs, youth entrepreneurship opportunities and more inclusive economy, and therefore bringing social benefits. PARTICIPANTS and NEEDS The project involves 5 partners from 4 EU countries. These organizations have numerous professionals (e.g. CE, GE, youth education, e-learning platform design, development of teaching/training, active pedagogy, gamification, etc.) >MAIN TARGET GROUPS are: • Youth (18 – 28 years): youth, from high school graduates to bachelor/master students and graduates (18-28 years), having an interest in developing green entrepreneurship. The need detected was to improve the knowledge, skills and competences in GE and CE needed to set up green businesses, to facilitate collaboration with peers in setting up new business models • Teachers from formal and non-formal education institutions working with youth interested to increase knowledge in the CE and green entrepreneurship. Key needs, which we have perceived are of interest in deepen the knowledge of some fundamental areas (notably CE, GE, ICT, etc.), the desire for increased exchange of experiences between organizations and the need for a more interdisciplinary approach. • NGOs and other organizations active in fields of CE, GE, youth including the partners organisations. We perceived that many are facing difficulties in increasing transnational cooperation, exchanging experiences and learning one from each other. It is also common to detect the need for higher skills in facilitating entrepreneurship and CE. >MAIN FINAL BENEFICIARIES are youth, staff, teachers, trainers, youth workers, and organizations active in the fields of CE, GE, youth PROJECT AIMS, OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES AND METHODOLOGY PROJECT OBJECTIVE is acquiring innovative specialised knowledge and competencies for young people, by empowering them to make use of GE and mind-sets, which will enable them to create new CE GE or non-profit business models/opportunities. Project activities will be implemented and resulting in 4 Intellectual Outputs (IO1-4), 2 Multiplier Events (E1-2), and 2 Teaching/Training/learning activities (C1, C2). IMPACT The project is expected to have a multifaceted impact: 1. PARTICIPANTS: we believe that project will greatly impact the daily work of professionals (trainers, teachers, professors, youth workers), relevantly contributing to supplementing/upgrading their current knowledge and offer an opportunity for developing professional competencies, including competencies of the individual (group) youth guidance and mentoring by establishing CE related businesses. Youth participants will receive key knowledge and competencies on CE, establishing GE and non-profit activities, digital and foreign language competencies as well as understanding and functioning in multicultural environment. Participants will enhance cooperation skills, increased motivation for entrepreneurship and non-profit activities, especially youth. 2. PARTICIPATING ORGANISATIONS: will directly collaborate in the research of the youth related educational field and development of new teaching, didactic approaches. At the end of the project they will receive intellectual outputs, which will substantially contribute to addressing the needs they have raised when preparing the project. Their existing international network will be significantly expanded as well. Engaging in research and development will contribute to capacity building for all organizations involved. 3. Other stakeholders, external participants, decision makers, media will be included at the local, national and international events within IO1, IO3, IO4, E1 and E2. By involving them, they will recognize the need of the CE and GE activities, youth social(entrepreneurship) and non-profit opportunities, needs of the target groups and organizations involved in the project. They enrich their knowledge and will establish inter sectorial connections which will impact their future work or decision-making process. 4. Social environment: increase of green jobs and decrease of youth unemployment rate.
As part of this project, we wanted to create a training on green entrepreneurship and circular economy for young people between 18 and 28 years old interested in entrepreneurship. We wanted this training to be accessible for free online for as many people as possible. Concretely, Building Bridges objectives were acquiring innovative, specialised competencies for youth, by empowering them to make use of GE, creating new CE business models. Our specific goals were - to introduce youth to CE, GE and make attractive, promoting career opportunities - to provide integrated knowledge and skills about CE potentials and benefits, including insights of social impacts, GE and non-profit challenges - to establish CE business models and promote GE business and collaborations at national, regional and European level - to transfer and disseminate in a pan-European level the projects’ results and use of CE for improving the environmental and social impacts - to strenghten networking between partner org., youth, other stakeholders
More than 3.3 million young people (aged 18-28 years) were unemployed in the EU in 2019. The situation got worse with the COVID19 crisis in 2020. At the same time, that crisis has also underlined the need to train people remotely. Many young people encounter the gap between education and 'real life', and get caught in a vicious cycle: unable to get a job due to lack of experience, and unable to gain experience without a job. Youth unemployment rate in 2016 was 15% in Slovenia and Romania , 50% in Greece and 13% in Belgium. Self-employment through building entrepreneurial skills could be part of the solution. For our partnership, it was clear that entrepreneurship education makes a difference: within alumni those who participated in any entrepreneurship training are 5 times more willing to start entrepreneurship activities. Because green entrepreneurship (GE), non-profit activities and circular economy (CE) are interlinked, we decided to create a course for youth between 18-28 years to teach them these concepts. The importance of CE is continually increasing when creating new green jobs, youth entrepreneurship opportunities and a more inclusive economy, and therefore bringing social benefits.