Social Innovation for Resilient Communities – Living Earth Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Innovation for Resilient Communities – Living Earth

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Capacity Building for youth in ACP countries, Latin America and Asia

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Young people in Africa and Europe are full of enthusiasm, creativity and high motivation to move towards sustainable lifestyles and resilient livelihoods. Many youth carry a strong vision of contributing to sustainable development of their societies while at the same time being able to make a living, raise a family and contribute to the resilience of their communities. However, there is a lack of inspiring examples, a lack of support and necessary skills to manifest this vision. The innovative Pattern Language Curriculum, called the ‘Evoneers’ Journey’, a learning journey for social innovation and entrepreneurship, developed by an Erasmus+ partnership project, SIRCle (Social Innovation for Resilient Communities), is capable of filling this gap. This capacity-building for youth project, called “Social Innovation for Resilient Communities – Living Earth – SIRC-LE”, known amongst partners as Youth SIRCle, builds on the work of the strategic partnership, SIRCle. The partners of the original SIRCle agreed to take the developed materials into this project; to share them with LOES and test their application in African contexts too. The educational tools that have been developed in SIRCle were translated to seven European languages, and were ready to be spread. Before this project, they had, however have not been adapted for youth, and Denmark is not amongst the countries thus far involved. In this project, 4 partner organizations, from the UK, Denmark, Ghana and Cameroon, have collaborated to share, adapt and add to the existing learning tools in order to contextualize them for the African context, for Denmark, and, most especially, for youth in all 4 countries. In this project, new Learning Patterns and Learning Exercises that are specifically geared to the needs of youth have been gathered, developed and translated. The project gained an added depth due to the fact that European youth and youth workers from the UK and Denmark were able to exchange and collaborate with youth and youth workers from Cameroon and Ghana. Two transnational meetings took place, in the UK and Ghana, where Training of Trainer activities were carried out to empower youth workers and youth to become multipliers in their countries. Through collaboration, dialogue and working together, these meetings, and the project as a whole, also strengthened mutual understanding and the embracing of cultural diversity on the path towards global citizenship. The initial push to start the project came from a shared interest in using social entrepreneurship to mitigate the situation of youth and others in both Africa and Europe. In the face of the ongoing refugee crisis, there is a strongly felt need to support sustainable economic development in Africa, as well as to find new ways to integrate newly arrived refugees in European Countries but economically and socially. In addition, building bridges between young people from different continents, and the understanding and friendship that ensues, have been a strong motivating factor in the project and its activities. Beyond Training of Trainer events, national trainings and events, and the production of new materials for the curriculum all focussed on training youth in green social entrepreneurship for resilient communities, the central activity of our collaboration has been two international Innovation Labs – Through Green Business start-up activities and teaser trainings in each of the countries, 4 green business incubation ideas from each were selected to be showcased and furthered developed Green Innovation Labs in Cameroon and Denmark, to share the inspiration with a broader public, to bring young people’s green business ideas across borders, and to provide young entrepreneurs with lifechanging experiences of cross-cultural collaboration.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 102227,49 Eur

Project Coordinator

GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK & Country: UK

Project Partners

• GLOBAL ECOVILLAGE NETWORK-GHANA
• BETTER WORD CAMEROON
• ANDELSTANKENS STØTTEFORENING