Social Entrepreneurship Now! Training Course in Sardinia

“Social Entrepreneurship Now!” is a Training Course (TC) that aims to gather in Uri, from 9th February to 16th February, 25 participants (youth workers, social workers, youth leaders) from 11 countries (Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Austria, Poland, Malta, UK, Romania, Croatia, Portugal and The Netherlands). There will be seven full working days.

 The Training Course aims at exploring the concept of social entrepreneurship as an innovative way to solve social problems using entrepreneurial skills and youth voice.

 It is an attempt to give an appropriate answer to the problems that young people from disadvantaged area in the Balkans and in Mediterranean countries are facing in the present: the high percentage of unemployment.

 The project intends to focus on the concept of the social entrepreneurship in general with specific attention on entrepreneurial skills, leadership and management, need and problem analysis and funding and financing; those topics will be explored in the context of youth organizations and volunteering. The ideas were developed with the strong belief that especially the European youth sector can and will benefit from projects like this one enormously in future years, thus is worthwhile to invest time, capacity and resources to share best practice examples and work with other young Europeans to create change in what concerns the perception of disadvantaged communities. Taking into consideration that employment problems cannot be tackled by one TC, we believe that there are several ways and means that can assist young people in their attempt to enter the job market: one of the possible answers to the present issue of joblessness is to promote the engagement in entrepreneurship.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3RTQtr0Vak&feature=youtu.be&w=500]

 The overall purpose is to stimulate young people to think about social entrepreneurship and its role, as well as to analyse the changes taking place in their own countries and communities and, last but not least, to inspire them to consider self-employment as a career choice.

 For the reasons mentioned above, the objectives of the TC are:

• To empower young people raising their self esteem and stimulating their creativity and sense of entrepreneurship;
• To raise awareness in the participants on key competences and develop different methods for using them in practice within social projects, developing and matching them with the new requirements of Erasmus + with their organisations;
• To develop the cooperation among different organisations coming from Mediterranean and Balkan countries;
• To incentive, young people to get involved into NGOs, youth activities, into local authorities, into international opportunities that arise. In addition, for them to stay and/or return to their communities, be active citizens and contribute to the realization of changes. We believe we can contribute to this goal through non-formal ways, moving down-up.

 Regarding the issues the project aims to include the following:

• Inclusion, through discussing the realities of the discrimination that is currently affecting people from towns being considered above the ones that live in the disadvantaged areas (as suburbs, villages, islands etc.). As previously mentioned, the project would like to promote a spirit of tolerance, solidarity and acceptance;
• Youth Unemployment, through highlighting the educational and boundless opportunities that exist and promoting active and proactive responses to them. Through its contribution to the decrease of unemployment, the project can also help to revitalize disadvantaged areas;
• Creativity and entrepreneurship, with the intention to practice empowerment of young people in order to make them aware of their own values and competences stressing their creativity and the capacity to create new job opportunities for themselves;
• Awareness about the nature of youth work through exploring the advantages, providing examples of youth work, trying to make the participants understand its purpose and meaning, as well as its impact on society, specifically on their communities and on their personal development;
• Sharing of best practices in the sphere of youth work through putting an important accent to the sharing experiences throughout the project and collecting the benefits coming from these experiences.

 Activities and methods:
The activities will be coordinated through non-formal education methods (group works, video productions, role-play games, brainstorming, etc.) and will include visits to the local cultural associations in the city centre, participation to sport events, meetings with the students of the sociology course at the university, exchanges with local administrators and members of local associations. Some activities will take place outdoor, to promote Erasmus+ and non-formal education and raise awareness on urban problems among the local community.

During the last days of the project, participants will have the chance to create working groups, to present ideas for future projects on urban issues, sustainability, and promotion of young people participation in their local community.

 The project will host 25 participants (each organisation will send two participants except Spain with 3) from the following 11partner  organisations:

• Spain – Associacion Agora Cultural;
• Romania – Asociatia Babilon Travel;
• Austria – Verein zur Forderung von Kulturaustausch und Nachhaltigkeit in Europa;
• Poland – Instytut Dzidzictwa Kruszwicy;
• Malta – Training to Malta;
• United Kingdom – Come2England;
• Croatia – Association of the Deaf and Hard Hearing Nova Gradiska;
• Bulgaria – Open Space Foundation;
• Portugal – Experimentaculo Asssociacao Cultural;
• Netherlands – Validee.com;
• Italy – Mine Vaganti NGO (Host).

The venue of the Project is Uri (Sardinia). Uri is a municipality in the Province of Sassari, located about 18 km northwest of Alghero (airport) and about 12 km northwest of Sassari. The accommodation is located in the heart of the town: it is a nice hotel called Ausentu (Further information is available in its website: http://www.ausentu.it/).

Update: The official video created at the ende of the event.