Since the economic crisis of 2008, unemployment has become an acute problem across countries, specifically in the European region, Eurostat estimates that around 18 million in the EU-28 were unemployed in the January 2018. It also states that around 4 million young people under the age of 25 were unemployed. It is crucial to note that since the start of the refugee crisis, over one million people have entered Europe. Per records, 82% of the asylum seekers are under the age of 35 and refugees do make up a significant number to the workforce of the EU. India too is plagued by unemployment rate around 10% and a majority of youth find it difficult to get jobs due to lack of skills and even if they find, it usually below their aspirations.Unemployment is usually higher among youth, as they find it difficult to get jobs, especially between the age group of 18 - 30. Among fluctuating market demands, lack of quality of labor force, - in terms of skills sets and good training schemes makes it further challenging. Considering the fact that, most refugees take at least 8 months - 12 months or never actually to actively integrate to active employment and yet most of them are dependent on social benefit schemes, it results in draining of resources that are, by and large limited. It is also noted that a significant of these young men and women find it difficult to find jobs matching their skills and the rest can’t find enough opportunities to develop skills to be a productive workforce.For an economy to tackle this, one ought to diversify access, create opportunities and build capacities of young people to take up jobs and/ or launch their own enterprises. Keeping the grim situation in mind, the project consortium finds it imperative to join hands to address unemployment among youth with fewer opportunities and young refugees. The consortium is formed to develop a Practical Training Scheme that builds skills and creates structural support for youth leading social businesses solving their community problems and also support young people aged 18 - 30 from refugee communities to launch innovative social businesses contributing to solve locally relevant issues. The project fits within the Erasmus+ policies of education, training and youth aiming at fostering cooperation between organizations working in the field of education, refugee community empowerment in Europe and India. The project aims at building capacities of youth through simulation, business understanding, active citizenship. Overall, the project consortium is committed to ensure the local youth from refugee communities who are in long-term unemployment become active, socially engaged problem solvers taking up entrepreneurship as a viable option for livelihood.
The Action Lab: Generating social businesses is a Capacity Building Project that took place in 2019-2020 involving 3 European partners and 1 Indian partner for the promotion of youth migrant inclusion and social entrepreneurship. The project have reached the Erasmus+ policies of education, training and youth aiming at fostering cooperation between organizations working in the field of education, refugee community empowerment in Europe and India. Taking in consideration the problems connected with migrants and refugees and their difficulties to find a way of employability, the project consortium finds it imperative to join hands to address unemployment among youth with fewer opportunities and young refugees. A Practical Training Scheme is one the main results of the projects for building skills and creates structural support for youth leading social businesses solving their community problems and also support young people aged 18 - 30 from refugee communities to launch innovative social businesses contributing to solve locally relevant issues. A virtual platform have been create to collect all the resources linked to the projects in order to facilitate the dissemination of results.The project had been influenced by the pandemia situation and the partners agreed to convert international dissemination activities into local focus groups. Despite the pandemic, the project achieved the following results:1) Training Schema - The practical training schema is organized in an education path with 12 specific topics. Each topic have one or more specific arguments that make it up.The 12 specific topics are: Team Building. Market Analysis, Problem Identification, Design a solution, Business Modeling, Business Process, Economic and Financial Analysis, Legal and Contractual Aspects, Business Planning, Investor Packaging, Fundraising, Funding Opportunities.2) Practical Guideline - Each training kit is divided into a booklet consisting of about 30 slides and one or more frameworks to be filled out through the use of colored post-its.All the toolkits are collected in a playbook with all the Schemas printed in A3 to allow users to build their business project and a block of post-its with pens and pencils for compiling the frameworks.3) Virtual Platform -The virtual platform allows users to have access to individual kits and templates, the virtual platform is equipped with an interactive map through which the user can download the kit. The virtual platform with the training schema is available at the following link: https://theactionlab.eu/training-schema/ 4) The Action Lab Experience - The Action Lab experience has been a 21 day of experience where 24 participants start with an idea and learn skills to build solutions and develop business projects. The Action Lab is a simulation of real-life scenarios and enables acquisition of skills easier and deeper through the learning-by-doing approach. 5) Set-up of Social Businesses: During The Action Lab experience, the following social business projects are setted-up. The project connected the selected young people with external international mentors and paved the way for the market launch of young companies. The projects set up are: Ecoside Plast, Material World, KALAKRITI, COMMUNEATY, ROOM, WomenWhoStart and Meeting Cafè.