META-methodologies TOOL box for young entrepreneurs Erasmus Project

Project Title

META-methodologies TOOL box for young entrepreneurs

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 2020

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

NOTE: THE PROJECT WAS SUBMITTED IN THE LAST ERASMUS CALL. WE HAVE ADAPTED THE PROJECT ACCORDING TO ALL THE EVALUATOR’S COMMENTS

The reason for carrying out this project stems from our contact with young people: working with them daily we see that they have a great potential but are often unable to direct it towards their goals and sometimes they are even unaware what these goals are. The Western world politics promoting the individual over the collective, isolation, vulnerability to the modern world problems are very visible in young people lives, resulting in much deeper and complex problems on personal level.
According to the Synthetic Index of Comparative Youth Development 2017 report issued by the Spanish Reina Sofia Centre, the overall development of the young Europeans from our Strategic Partnership countries is 7,3 out of 10 points in case of the UK, 5 points for Spain and 4 for Italy (the average score being 6,1). Youth unemployment rates in the partner countries are very high: UK: 8%, Spain: 26,2% and Italy: 24,8% (data from November 2018). The social participation data is also worrying: according to the Global Youth Wellbeing Index, UK ranks 10th and Spain 13th. EU Watcher states that with 5.6 million unemployed young people (under 25) in the EU – and this figure will only rise the coming years – the necessity for drastic labour market improvement becomes enormous.

After the analysis of the information provided by the partner organisations and focus groups, we agreed that one of the solutions to alleviate the dreadful situation of Europe’s young is to promote youth entrepreneurship. Growth will not come from existing companies, so startups and new sustainable organisations are essential to create jobs and avoid the looming lost generation, which is why we decided to make a joint effort to try to improve the existing situation.

The organisations: Creativity Works Preston (CWP, UK), Oriel (Italy), Chamber of Commerce of Cantabria (COCIN Spain) and Permacultura Cantabria (PC, Spain) decided to form this Strategic Partnership to help to improve the existing situation of young people from our countries and other young Europeans, providing them with tools useful for collaborative entrepreneurship, social activism and environmental awareness.

The reason to form our Strategic Partnership is the need to activate and empower youth workers and young people, improving their sense of initiative and social participation, supporting competitiveness and youth employment and providing the most positive attitude towards European projects and EU values through the new meta-methodology: META-TOOL.

In order to achieve it, we established the following objectives:

1Transfer participating organisations’ knowledge and best practices regarding collaborative entrepreneurship, social activism and environmental awareness that will be a basis for the new methodology.
2Create an innovative META-TOOL meta-methodology featuring collaborative entrepreneurship, social activism and environmental awareness.
3Transfer META-TOOL meta-methodology to young people from our strategic partnership and communities.
4Consolidate new knowledge and skills acquired by youth workers by applying them in practice while working with the organisations’ young beneficiaries and their communities.
5Facilitate the access to this new methodology to other young people and youth workers from the whole Europe using an effective dissemination campaign.

The transnational activities planned for this project are:

3 transnational meetings in Spain, Italy and UK.
Participatory Visit in UK, where the organisations will exchange tools in collaborative entrepreneurship, innovation, social activism and environment awareness.
Creation of an Intellectual Output: Interactive Book about the innovative META-TOOL meta-methodology
Course in Spain: where youngsters and youth workers will acquire the newly created methodology. They will learn how to apply and transfer it to other people from youth communities.

As a summary of the impact, youth communities will benefit directly from the project because of its focus on promoting entrepreneurship, social activism and environmental awareness. The project will help with reaching higher social participation among youth, as the new tools and abilities will grant them possibilities of creating better, more attractive projects, both professional and personal. Youth workers will improve their leadership skills and quality of their work. Increased level of self-esteem and confidence of youth workers that participated in the activities will translate directly into greater diversity, creativity and sustainability in their professional and personal life.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 139647 Eur

Project Coordinator

Creativity Works Preston & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ORIEL APS
• CAMARA OFICIAL DE COMERCIO INDUSTRIA Y NAVEGACION DE CANTABRIA
• ASOCIACION CULTURAL Y MEDIOAMBIENTAL PERMACULTURA CANTABRIA