The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the social inclusion and social integration in regional, local communities in post-COVID19 situation by strengthening the cooperation between community based youth organisations and social enterprises and local municipalities, and promoting social entrepreneurship as an effective tool for reducing economic inequality, promoting social inclusion and integration, creating resilient society and fostering active participation within local communities. Specific objectives: - to strengthen the capacity and skills of local municipalities to support and cooperate with social enterprises, and to initiate result oriented partnerships among municipalities and youth community based organisations and social enterprises through providing tools, policy recommendations, experience exchange, educational and trust building activities. - to strengthen the capacity and skills of youth organisations and social enterprise to adapt to the COVID19/post-COVID19 situation, improve their cooperation and partnership skills with local municipalities and use these skills to implement existing and new social initiatives. - to communicate stories and narratives about the power of social entrepreneurship in creating more resilient communities and positive social impact on a local level, and about the importance of local government institutions and local community representatives working together to achieve this. - to provide various international case studies for common learning on the cooperation building - to pilot the approach of mapping and creation of a local action plan for a certain municipality - to encourage local municipalities to create long-term, sustainable cooperation and new social enterprises - to test the pilot-municipality approach, working closely with one case-study, replicating the learnings on a larger scale. Through the project, we wish to encourage more municipalities to get interested and involved in cooperating with Youth organisations and social enterprises, by leveraging the international experience to be learned from. We have been working in many ways (research, case study collection, webinars, individual meetings) to raise awareness for the municipality representatives about the impact created by the local organisations and to stimulate the cooperation. - to fully investigate the correlation between local councils and youth organisations, social enterprises as well as develop and promote social entrepreneurship in these areas.
Municipalities are a driving force in their respective regions setting the course of actions for their stakeholders. Youth organisations and social enterprises (organisations and social enterprises run by young people and/or working with young people) are essential members in municipalities as their energy and motivation bring new innovative ideas to improve the local context. However, often these two players do not manage to meet and collaborate easily - youth organisations and social enterprises consider municipalities to be unreachable and municipalities do not find the right ways to reach and help their direct audience. Therefore, the project focuses on the cooperation between municipalities and local youth organisations and social enterprises that strengthen the social inclusion and social integration in regional, local communities in post-COVID19 situation. The project provides an opportunity to reduce the social, cultural and economical exclusion that municipalities in Lithuania, Cyprus, Latvia, Sweden and Portugal currently face. It has been an important topic for all of the partner organisations involved in the project, as each of the partners in one or another way has been developing this topic in their countries during the last years. The aim of the partner organizations is to draw more attention to youth organisations and social enterprises in municipalities and especially those that are based in the rural areas, accordingly this project would let us establish a better understanding of the situation and related problems, empower youth organisations in the rural areas, as well as create a better partner network in the municipalities. Rich international experience of involved partners working with similar issues will bring diverse experience and best practise examples and a unique opportunity to test these approaches in five countries to reach more effective results and conclusions. NEEDS PLANNED TO ADDRESS: From previous experience working with municipalities (e.g., report written by two of the consortium partners “SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AND MUNICIPALITIES: COOPERATION, PARTNERSHIPS & SYNERGIES” and project “BUILDING RESILIENCE AND COOPERATION: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR STRONGER COMMUNITIES IN LATVIA”), as well as from discussions with all the project partners several needs have been identified to foster the cooperation between municipalities and youth organisations and social enterprises, that are planned to be tackled during this project: - Need to cooperate: Municipalities are interested and willing to cooperate, but do not know how, they need extra motivation and external push; - Need for impact created by local stakeholders: Youth organizations and social enterprises are creating the local impact much needed in municipalities; - Need for tested methods: Focused work with the pilot municipality leads to stronger drive to create support schemes in the future; - Need for a certain process to follow, methods to be used to build successful partnerships; - Need for greater impact: Cooperation strengthens the impact created; - Need for examples: Successful case studies encourages municipalities; - Need for common focus: The mapping of pilot municipalities will present the local context; - Need for an objective view and recommendations: External view helps to identify the needs and strengths of the local context.