The overall aim of the project is to realize a long term non-formal education process at international level and among organisations (Youth Centres/Clubs, youth associations, associations of social promotion, cultural associations, NGOs, etc.) coming from 7 different European countries (EU and Western Balkans) able to empower the youth work through social entrepreneurships for the young people with which they work, to increase the competences of their youth/social workers to better include the different target groups in the social, cultural, and economic life of their communities. Project partners (Youth Centres/Clubs, youth associations, associations of social promotion, cultural associations, NGOs, etc.) have a common understanding that it is important to evolve constantly the learning pathways and the development opportunities to reflect the changes in society and to establish a cross-sector approach to empower young people in their development. General Objectives:1) to support innovation and quality of non formal education in youth work acquiring and developing new methodologies, activities and competences; 2) to improve the youth work that our NGO’s are doing on field with young people through social entrepreneurships and to provide ideas for sustainability of partner organisations in order to empower their social, cultural and economical development and increase their inclusion opportunities; 3) To reinforce the relationship among partners with the specific objective to plan and realise future projects under the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme using the knowledge and competences acquired during this project. Future projects will represent a concrete opportunity of active involvement and personal and economic development for those young people with which all the partner work. During all phases of the project will be respected and applied the principles of non formal education (these include the methods of non-formal/ informal learning, ORA - Observe, Rethink, Act, experiential and active pedagogy, mentoring and/or peer support and relationship-based activities): all the methodologies that will be used and activities proposed are designed to ensure the direct involvement of partners and participants at any time of the project promoting freedom of expression, exchange and cooperation, interaction and creativity. Furthermore, the methodology used will be strongly oriented in terms of intercultural learning paying attention to the cultural diversity represented by the partnership (EU and Western Balkans countries), promoting a good environment, mutual understanding and cooperation among all participants. Following the ORA approach, main activities planned are a Study Visit in Italy (Observe Phase), a Seminar in Serbia (Re-think Phase), a Training Course and a Conference in Bosnia Herzegovina (Act Phase).
Project “ORA: Social Entrepreneurship as Tool for Sustainability/OSETS” as overall aim had to realize a long term non formal education process at international level and among organizations (Youth centres/Clubs, youth associations, associations which promote social equality, cultural associations, etc) coming from 7 different European countries (four EU and 3 Western Balkans countries) able to empower the youth work through social entrepreneurship for the young people with which they work, to increase the competences of their youth workers in order to include better target groups in social, cultural and economic life of their communities. During planning and realization of this project we have leaned on a long-term cooperation in youth work developed in the last 4 years among different European partners within the framework of ORA Network (Observe, Rethink, Act). Thanks to our old and new partners during this project we had the opportunity to verify at grassroots level and through international dimension that the transverse skills that are increasingly needed for personal, civic and professional routes from youth to adulthood can be achieved through social entrepreneurship. We have focused on practical knowledge which participants gained and shared through project activities but also in their everyday, local work. In this way we have also empowered the network ORA because we used our own resources where is possible and contacts and educational paths from previous experiences. Having in mind that our partners are youth Centres, youth associations and organisations working with young people which are "open spaces" where young people are receiving support and guidance in the process of the personal and professional growth we wanted to ensure that partners can become for them as incubators for different socio – cultural and environmental micro-projects that offer the possibility for young people to discover and experience their potential, abilities, skills, inclinations and ambitions, while actively participating in a responsible way to the life of their community. Priorities of this project were to increase skills of professionals who are working with youth in order to empower their beneficiaries with ideas and basic knowledge how to develop social entrepreneurship. In order to realize this kind of project it was be very important to have contact with institutions who are giving support to development of social entrepreneurship. This was important both for youth organizations and young people in order to answer properly to the increasing demand for more wide support through youth work activities and to the professional needs expressed by several organisations engaged in youth work to raise their capacities to better perform and provide more useful services for economical sustainability of youth organizations and for young people with which they work. The overall aim of the project was to empower youth workers and organizations to use social entrepreneurship as a tool for sustainability of their work with and for young people. In this way partners gained innovative approaches.This meant to give all participants space to express their needs and expectations and together with them make “how to”. In order to achieve set objectives we implemented following activities: •A1 Study visit (Observe phase)•A2 Seminar (Rethink phase)•Recommendation with case studies and online toolkit•Incubator workshops activities•A3 Training course (Act phase)•A4 Conference on social entrepreneurship