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Sales Skills for Life

2023-1-LV02-KA153-YOU-0001356442023Mobility of youth workersfinalizedGood practice
Countries: LV|RO|CZ|CY|EL|HU|UA|IT|BG|PT · Grant: €33,328
Youth employabilityEntrepreneurial learning - entrepreneurship educationQuality and innovation of youth work

Objectives

Sales Skills for Life focused on supporting youth workers of our partner organizations in their professional development by improving their sales and other entrepreneurial skills. We boosted youth workers' ability and confidence to support the entrepreneurial learning of unemployed youngsters, increasing the capacity of both their and involved organizations' work. This way contributing to our overall goal of supporting youth participation and reducing unemployment. We saw that prior to the pandemic, young people were already facing a challenging transition into the labor market as they were 3 times more likely than adults to be unemployed. (A. Rebmann, Kings College London, 2021) The youth unemployment rates (15,1%, November 2022, Eurostat which lead up to 32% in some countries) were alarmingly high and unemployment at such identity-defying age can lead to long-lasting consequences. Thus with the technological development and global crisis, now more than ever, youth employment (especially for Ukrainians) needs our focus, and entrepreneurship can help. While there is a huge benefit to entrepreneurial learning activities and in developing the entrepreneurial & sales skills for both youth workers and their target groups, there is a huge lack of high- quality, practical and tangible courses that offer it. Thus, here are key survey findings that showcase that entrepreneurship as a topic often feels foreign to youth workers: -90% of respondents would like to offer entrepreneurial learnings programs for youngsters; -75% feel like they don`t have enough opportunities to improve their entrepreneurial skills; -86% need extra support and guidance to work with these topics; -70% don`t feel comfortable organizing entrepreneurial learning programs; Regarding what would support them to train the entrepreneurial skills of youngsters 90% marked "gaining practical entrepreneurial experience", 80% "improving their entrepreneurial skills" and 70% "gaining theoretical knowledge". Our idea was to bring the best practices from the business world and combine them with Non-Formal Education and Experiential Learning methodology this way creating a highly-practical program through which youth workers can gain hands-on entrepreneurial experience in order to increase their readiness to include entrepreneurial learning in their work. We worked on youth workers' skill development, providing various tools and methods, and putting all these learnings into practice during the mini-hackathon which will focus on creating effective initiatives that tackle societal issues. This way increasing their capacity to support unemployed youngsters in entering the labor market. The objectives of this project are: - to develop sales and other entrepreneurial skills of 31 youth workers (38% of them facing fewer opportunities); - for youth workers to put into practice these skills and gain practical entrepreneurial experience by working on 31 professional projects/initiatives during the TC; - to create 7 ideas on how to support the integration of Ukrainians in the mini-hackathon; - to bring together 10 organizations from Latvia, Ukraine, Czechia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. - to boost youth workers' and partner organizations' ability and confidence to support the entrepreneurial learning of unemployed youngsters; - to exchange tools and methods between the involved organizations; - to share best entrepreneurial learning practices through 3 online events; - to promote entrepreneurial learning by writing 10 articles (1 per country); - to evaluate the project through 31 Youthpasses & Questionnaires. This project links to the following objectives of the Erasmus+ program and this specific key action: 1) Provide non-formal and informal learning opportunities for educational and professional development of youth workers, contributing to high-quality individual practice as well as to the evolution of youth work organisations and systems - through our TC we will support the skill and competencies development of youth workers, supporting them and our partner organizations in their professional development. 2) Build a community of youth workers that can support the quality of projects and activities for young people in EU programmes and beyond - through this project and our active partner organizations, we support youth workers in developing quality partnerships and network of like-minded individuals and organizations. 3) Develop local youth work practices and contribute to capacity building for quality youth work of the participants and their organisation, having a clear impact on the participating youth workers' regular work with young people - through the local activities and through bringing back the tools and learnings from the TC youth workers daily work will improve, increasing its impact.

Project partners (10)