Project Title: Young Female Entrepreneurs Program (YFEP)
Project code: 2019-2-PL01-KA205-066107
Grant: 221577 €
Funding Scheme: Erasmus +
Key Action: KA2
Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for youth, Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Coordinator: Fundacja Autokreacja(PL)
Partners: The Nest Social Cooperative Enterprise (GR), Cyprus Organisation for Sustainable Education & Active Learning-SEAL CYPRUS (CY), MV International (IT), AREGAI Terre di Benessere Associazione Culturale (IT), West Lothian Chamber of Commerce(UK)
Project dates: 01.09.2019 – 30.11.2022
“Young Female Entrepreneurial Program YFEP” is a Strategic Partnership project aimed at developing an entrepreneurial mindset and related skills in young women with a weak socioeconomic background. The inspiration for the YFEP project is the ongoing EU challenge of enhancing the entrepreneurial spirit of young women, increasing business creation rates, and providing alternative pathways of employability and, most of all, young women’s personal fulfillment. The challenges that women identify in starting a business include discouraging social/cultural attitudes, lower levels of entrepreneurship skills, smaller and less effective entrepreneurial networks, and policy frameworks that discourage women’s entrepreneurship. Instruments traditionally used to address these barriers (training and grants) have oftentimes had limited success and need to be better calibrated to the target group’s needs.
The project aimed at developing an entrepreneurial mind-set and related skills in young women with a weak socioeconomic background
The YFEP approach aims at offering young women with the motivation to start a business (alone or with others) an all-in-one program (online contents and tools, workshops, group activities, multi-mentor support, …) in enlarging their knowledge on entrepreneurship, sustainable management, improve attitudes and foster skills needed to initiate and manage an enterprise, and most of all, empower them with the support of a multi-mentor program.
A transnational project is needed because a joint approach might be more effective to tackle common social issues related to NEET and youth unemployment, female unemployment in particular. The collaborative community development model can be beneficial to foster better local networks connected with other organizations with good expertise in youth work at a European level.
The multi-mentors individual and all-around support offered by the program has the final aim of boosting motivation and guide participants in planning their business step-by-step. The partners will select female professionals with different specialization (finance, marketing, sales, HR management, Business plan writing, business planning, time management…) and sharing with the participants the existing links to potential clients and suppliers, in order to create a full functioning and structured support network. In this way, young participants will be empowered and nurtured by senior female professionals with a wide range of expertise and professional background. The activities are performed via a communication and learning platform equipped to facilitate cooperation and communication among all involved parts.
The results of this project will be, all multilingual: a training course for youth workers and trainers of youth workers, to be tested during weeklong staff mobility; a guidebook and tools to be used by young women with a business idea and the motivation to implement it, a protocol to engage stakeholders and specialists and motivate them in supporting the young participants, a manual for specialists and experts (women in particular) willing to learn mentoring and coaching techniques and support actively the young participants in their development path.
Target Group:
Young women with a disadvantaged background
Project Objectives:
a) Combine the competences and knowledge of the 6 partners, to build a MULTI-DISCIPLINARY GROUP working to solve the common issues, by consolidating and expanding existing local ecosystem, and equipping them to support the target group during the proposed activities in the 24- month long partnership.
b) Modify the EYP program this project is based upon, adding specific elements (multi-mentoring program, entrepreneurial education, how to involve and talk with families) and having it assessed during the common training
c) Select and involve 25 mentors among the partners’ wide number of contacts to improve the proposed multi-mentor program and ensure adequate support.
d) Prepare and test a training course aimed at increasing competences and skills in 15 TRAINERS appointed by participating organizations to instruct 50 YOUTH WORKERS in the use of the YFE program
e) Elaborate a new way to increase young women transversal skills and boost their self-confidence and test it with 100 young women, selected at the local level by the partners, during the 8-month pilot activity
Activities:
4 Transnational Project Meeting
1 Joint-Staff Mobility
1 Blended Mobility
1 Local Phase involving 100 young women
1 Multiplier Event
