Project

Context
The effects of the social and economic crisis on employability, especially among young people, have been devastating. The labor market tends increasingly to hire fewer and fewer wage-earning people. Social enterprises are an innovative way to combine economic growth with social and environmental responsibility as well as the inclusion of disfavored people, promoting social values and new jobs.

Social start-ups are led by social entrepreneurs: they generate social value (watching for the rights and interests of the most vulnerable people; responding to ecological crisis; eradicating discrimination against certain social groups, hunger, etc). These approaches promote sustainable solutions in the short and long-term. According to the European Commission, social start-ups now account for the 10% of all Europe new business creation.

Objectives
To strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit; to offer training and guidance to provide the participants with an introduction on how to start up socially as well as to increase the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; with the aim to lower the unemployment rate among young people, and therefore, contribute to their labor and social inclusion.

Target
80 young people at social risk regardless of their ethnicity, religion sexual orientation, etc, from Scotland, Italy, Bulgaria and Spain, with difficulties to become part of the [social] market, such as NEETS and unemployed people without higher education studies.

They will acquire social entrepreneurs competences as well as soft skills. After the training and internship, participants will be able to decide if they want to carry on with vocational training on social entrepreneurship to acquire new professional competences, skills and knowledge in order to start up their own social enterprise.

Methodology – List of contents
This methodology and list of contents has been co-developed by all partner organizations.

It’s a training methodology to become familiar with social entrepreneurship by working on an arranged sequence of phases, in order for the participants to acquire the needed competences, skills and knowledge to become social entrepreneurs. Its emphasis is on the combination of different learning formats, ranging from e-learning with video tools, doing internships in social enterprises, and last but not least, being a methodology oriented and adapted to the target group; its needs and its expectations.

Methodology – Process
We will work on the co-developed methodology for the first 7 months; 12 months to co-develop and create the module content; 8 months to adapt the online social platform and upload the materials; 2 months to create the web page (work in progress); 11 months for the Mooc courses; 5 days for the Training for trainers; 6 months for the certificates; 3 weeks for each module, 4 days for the Participative work & Guidance, 1 month for the internship. Some of these activities set for the training overlap one another (not the 3 stages of the execution of the Pilot training); 11 months for the Training guide; and 4 months to organize each one of the conferences, including the International one in Barcleona.

Results and Outputs
A Co-developed methodology among all partners; a project web page; an online social platform with all the online courses and its contents. Mooc courses for each one of the modules, to be uploaded on an Open educational resource (OER) for vocational training with Mooc’s. A European Social Entrepreneurship Certificate for each one of the participants; and a Training guide. The latter will explain the methodology used, with its pertinent phases, good practices and experience-based articles from the participants, illustrating this way the impact that the training has had on their life, especially professional life, or their projection of it.

Expected Impacts
The youth to whom we address the project will come out of the training knowing the basics on how to start up a social enterprise. The expected effects are to be in their communities and in the individual level, in their own vision of the world, how to overcome educational, economic, social and life barriers.

On the other hand, we think that these young participants can be multiplier subjects of the project impact right from the moment when they tell others about the training (project) or also by giving example with their own actions.

This way, in the mid and long term these young participants from the different countries will be able to start up socially, contributing to a more socially aware society tackling poverty, environment among other issues and help to lower the unemployment rate. The community social well being as well as welfare will increase by the type of services offered by these enterprises.