KA205–Strategic Partnerships for Youth
TITLE: Entrepreneurship to Empower (“ENTEM”)
DURATION: 24 months (01-02-2020/31-01-2022)
PARTNERS:
- Coordinator: SYSTEM & G FINLAND RY (Finland)
- Partner: MV INTERNATIONAL (Italy)
- Partner: NGO NEST BERLIN EV (Germany)
- Partner: Alliance for Global Development (Luxembourg)
Entrepreneurship to Empower (“ENTEM”) was an exchange of good practices that proposed an integrated and holistic approach emphasizing international cooperation for developing NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) young people’s life skills and entrepreneurial skills. The goal was to prepare them to enter the labor market, create their own opportunities, and become agents of change in their communities through international learning, teaching, and training activities.
ENTEM emphasized international cooperation for developing NEETs young people’s life skills and entrepreneurial skills.
The Europe 2020 Strategy highlighted entrepreneurship among young people as an essential objective, including the “Youth on the Move” flagship initiatives. The 2020 Entrepreneurship Action Plan outlined crucial actions to promote entrepreneurship, such as education and training, enabling entrepreneurs to thrive, developing role models, and reaching specific groups that could not exploit their entrepreneurial potential. The EU Youth Strategy recognized youth employment and entrepreneurship as one of the eight areas of action.
The partners conducted a needs analysis to identify the challenges faced by NEETs young people, the constraints, and existing opportunities in the partner organizations’ policies and activities. It also provided essential highlights at the European level.
Main findings:
- High rate of youth unemployment in two of the partner countries (32.20% in Italy, 20.40% in Finland).
- Poverty and social exclusion: Italy had one of the highest at-risk-of-poverty rates in the EU with 35%, Germany had 24.7%, and Finland had 24.2% (Eurostat, 2017).
- High rates of NEETs (aged 20-34): 29.5% in Italy, 11.9% in Germany, and 14.5% in Finland.
- Educational constraints at partner countries level: insufficient education provided by the state education system – teaching entrepreneurship in schools was isolated, entrepreneurial education had gaps in content and used ineffective learning methods, which did not provide a long-term impact for young people who attended entrepreneurship programs. This affected how youngsters related to entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in particular.
The project proposed an integrated and holistic approach emphasizing international cooperation for developing NEETs young people’s life skills and entrepreneurial skills to prepare them to enter the labor market or create their own opportunities and be agents of change in their communities through international learning, teaching, and training activities.
Objectives of the project:
ENTEM pursued the following specific objectives:
- Contrasting massive youth unemployment by developing social entrepreneurship potential and related soft/transversal skills in disadvantaged young people (NEETs) through Urban Needs’ Analysis, Storytelling, ICT, and Intercultural Communication.
- Researching and comparing existing European good practices of social entrepreneurship education of young people through Urban Needs’ Analysis, Storytelling, Marketing, and Intercultural Communication.
- Producing state-of-the-art reports outlining the existing landscape of European good practices.
- Elaborating a set of toolkits and a comprehensive “Bolstering Youth Entrepreneurship” format representing a practical reference for NGOs and stakeholders’ operators.
- Developing a network among organizations experienced in the field of entrepreneurial empowerment.
Main activities: Within 24 months, there were transnational meetings, production of reports, and development and testing of entrepreneurial methodologies in four different yet interconnected Blended Mobilities of Young People (BMYP).
