Just before the pandemic hit, the world was passing through one of the best economic times Forbes (2020). Once the pandemic hit, world economies took a big hit and as a result of that unemployment rates once again saw a spike (IMF, 2020). Research done by Farrugia (2016) & Ayhan (2016), shows that in economic crises, young people have a higher risk of ending below the poverty line as they have a higher chance of ending up unemployed. Eurostat statistics show that the unemployment rate is usually higher amongst youth rather than older adults. In fact, in July 2021 the EU unemployment rate amongst adult workers in the EU stood at 7.6% and the youth unemployment rate stood at 16.2%, with some countries like Greece and Spain having youth unemployment rates of 37.6% and 35.1% respectively. As a group of partners, we started to look deeper into how we as youth workers can help youth fight unemployment. During literature research that we did, we found a quote saying that “entrepreneurship is important for young people as it helps them to create their own jobs & also as it helps them to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to their professional carееrs.” (Lenders,2017). We went back to the young people and did a focus group with our youth. In the first part of the focus group, we explored in more detail what young people think about entrepreneurship and if they would consider becoming entrepreneurs. We were surprised that around 65% of the respondents said that they would like to take entrepreneurs in the future. Some of the reasons that these youth brought were that entrepreneurship would help them to: - Be creative - Create their own working schedule and own working environment - Create a sense of independence. The second part of the focus group, explored the factors which are seen as obstacles by young people when they come to start their business. The standard replies which were extracted from the surveys were “Fear due to lack of knowledge & doubt in their own capabilities”, “Time management as they do not know how to prioritize”, “Capital”, “Bureaucracy”, “Fear from the unknown” & “Not knowing from where to start”. These areas together with other topics will be addressed during our training. During our literature research, relevant information started to come out about the topic of social entrepreneurship (SE) & how SE can help the most vulnerable youth. Research by Shaw & Carter (2007), showed that SE can work together with the welfare system to create an inclusive society for the most vulnerable young people. We did a questionnaire about the topic of SE among our youth workers & it came out that the knowledge about the topic, including the benefits of SE & how it can be used, was low among our youth workers. It was decided to embark on a project that educates youth workers in the field of entrepreneurship with a focus on SE. We aimed to equip the participants with knowledge on entrepreneurship that they can now pass on to youth. We also focused on SE so that with the information on SE & with knowledge & skills on entrepreneurship itself, these youth workers are now in a better position to open their own SE &/or help their organisation follow the SE path. The objectives of this project were: - To tackle the topics of leadership, self-empowerment, time management, risk assessment and teamwork; all essential traits in entrepreneurship. - To help the youth workers better understand why young people are choosing the path of entrepreneurship and how we as youth workers can help them achieve their dream. - To help the youth workers to get hands-on thе ‘Dеsign Thinking’ process, by creating business ideas inspired by prе-dеfinеd challenges in their local communities. - Show what it takes to be an entrepreneur & how to manage risk-taking. - To help the participants to get an experience with the Canva business model & how to adapt the Canva business model for the planning of a social enterprise. - Up-skill youth workers to foster employability and a sense of initiative with the young people that they work with. Through this project, we gave competencies to youth workers on how to educate young people in starting a business. One outcome was that upon knowledge transfer from the youth workers to the youth, the youth will have a better support system & guidance to be able to start a business venture that has the possibility of growing more in the future & thus employing more people within the same society. This will have a multiplying effect. Furthermore, since the youth workers were empowered & given skills on how to effectively open & run a business with a focus on SE, they now have all the knowledge to open a SE themselves, which will benefit them and the whole community. Also, these entrepreneurial skills that were given to the youth workers, could be used by the youth workers themselves, in the running of their organisations.