Empowerment Through Enterprise Erasmus Project

Project Title

Empowerment Through Enterprise

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 : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

Entrepreneurship skills provide young people with a route to business creation, self-employment and financial empowerment; social entrepreneurship can empower them to generate positive impact in their community; and entrepreneurial thinking encourages innovation and resilience in all spheres, personal and professional. As our economy and society undergo transformation, these qualities are important for all young people. However, they are especially important to those who face discrimination or difficulty in seeking traditional employment, especially young women and especially those from immigrant and ethnic minority backgrounds.

Empowerment through Enterprise (ETE) was based on the premise that we can –and must– do more to build entrepreneurial skills among this capable group of young people. However, it also recognized that VET providers of entrepreneurship education are currently ill-equipped to do so: today’s entrepreneurship courses are inclusive on paper only – in reality they often inhibit the participation of young women from diverse backgrounds and the content and delivery is so far removed from their experience that the courses are ineffective in leading to the expected outcomes.

Therefore, ETE aimed to drastically improve the access to and quality of entrepreneurship education within the context of inclusion and diversity so as to unlock the potential of young people, especially female immigrants.

We worked with partners from across the spectrum of entrepreneurship education (VET), youth work and community groups to:
i) Develop a “REACH AND TEACH” CATALOGUE (IO1) presenting good practice to engaging with young people from minority groups

ii) Used this to create a CURRICULUM AND CLASSROOM COURSE MATERIALS (IO2) that established objectives, assessment techniques and content and lesson plans.

iii) Converted the latter into an OPEN ONLINE COURSE (IO3) that teaches those skills online

iv) Rigorously tested and optimized the resources in collaboration with our target users and then DISSEMINATED them widely them to maximise their use.

Each partner was assigned leadership of the output or activity corresponding to their specific field of expertise and experience, but all organizations were involved in all tasks.

On completion, ETE produced the linkages, the knowledge and the resources to enable enterprise centres, colleges, and organizations across the youth and migrant services sectors to drastically improve access to and quality of entrepreneurship education for young women in the context of diversity and inclusion.

– YOUNG WOMEN who were previously excluded or marginalized in the labour market, will now be empowered to unlock their professional and personal capabilities. Some will go on to create businesses, many will use their entrepreneurial skillset for other employment or community benefits.

– COLLEGES AND ENTERPRISE CENTRES and other VET providers will have gained greater awareness regarding the importance of inclusive entrepreneurship education and new and improved resources to cater to the needs of disadvantage groups through the lense of inclusion, diversity and intercultural integration.

– YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS and MIGRANT SERVICES will now understand the value of entrepreneurship skills thanks to new relationships with VET organizations, and will be able to refer beneficiaries to the open, online course as an immediate path for training and career development.

– PROJECT PARTNERS will now be the first to benefit from the ability to integrate new approaches to inclusive education and their work in synergy with organizations from other sectors. Staff can now appreciate the more modern, professional environment and are now more capable of work on high scale international collaborative projects.

– WIDER STAKEHOLDERS from across the youth, VET and community services sectors are now exposed to new forms of inclusive entrepreneurship education and are more likely to commit to more practical strategies for improving inclusion and diversity on a wider level.

– COMMUNITIES will now see a rise in entrepreneurship and innovation among young people and benefit from the increased social integration and cohesion that comes from enabling young women to play a productive role in the economy and society.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 244822 Eur

Project Coordinator

Dungannon Enterprise Centre & Country: UK

Project Partners

• European E-learning Institute
• VisMedNet Association
• Go-Woman! Alliance Community Interest Company
• MOMENTUM MARKETING SERVICES LIMITED
• LE LABA
• Doras Luimni