"The project ""KISS: the Key Is Social Sustainability"" aims to contribute in promoting the sustainability of the initiatives of Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) between its current actors and those young people who want to enter the sector. One of the major challenges faced by associations, cooperatives and other initiatives of the SSE, as well as those young social entrepreneurs, is the high dependence of their initiatives from public subsidies. This lack of sustainability (economic, but also social, environmental, of labor and political) conditions and makes them more vulnerable. Responding to the need of strengthening the sustainability of SSE initiatives, and using the potential of the intellectual products developed during the ""ISSE, community Works!"" project, we intend to promote a new European Strategic Partnership project that will benefit from the work of 9 Partner organizations from 4 countries (France, Italy, Greece and Spain) from the educational sector, youth work, the economy and the public sector: universities, non-formal education organizations, training centers, cooperatives and chambers of commerce. Over 2 years, the project aims to achieve the following specific results: - Create a network for the exchange of good sustainability practices in the field of SSE (with a local impact), exploring the different dimensions of sustainability and directly benefiting 44 participants among technicians, professionals and managers of the partner organizations and other organizations involved in the project, with a special attention to young people who want to start as entrepreneurs in SSE; - Develop and implement training modules on sustainable social entrepreneurship, training about 56 participants among technicians, professionals and managers, with special attention to young SSE entrepreneurs; - Create sustainable development plans of the organizations of origin of the young participants; - Collect good practices, training modules on sustainable social entrepreneurship and sustainable development plans already created and make them available to stakeholders and all those who want to promote sustainability within an SSE initiative; - Strengthen the capacities of the consortium organizations to improve the coherence and sustainability of their SSE proposal; - Consolidate a consortium of organizations from different sectors of society and different European countries, interested in promoting sustainability within social entrepreneurship, especially among young people. The project plans to achieve these results through the following activities: - the creation of the project website, showing inspiring good practices in sustainability within the SSE; - 3 transnational meetings of the consortium partners: initial, intermediate and final; - 4 study visits, one in each country, to publicize successful sustainable practices within the SSE. Each visit will address the issue of sustainability by focusing on a specific topic of interest: social inclusion through the participatory approach (in Spain); local social development in response to the crisis (in Greece); cooperation with public policies (in France); social innovation through non-profit cooperation (in Italy); - 2 international training courses focusing on sustainability within social entrepreneurship (social participation and sustainability, and innovation and sustainability policies), using the intellectual results of the ""ISSE, community works!"" project; - the development of sustainable development plans for all the organizations involved (mapping of budget proposals and support services), through the participants of the training; - 1 international learning seminar on governance, teamwork, cooperation and sustainable development plans, aimed at developing cross-cutting skills and improving sustainable development plans; - the compilation in a booklet of the good practices of sustainability within the SSE shared by the partners and of the sustainable development plans elaborated by the entities involved. This is the contribution of the current project for the promotion of a sustainability perspective within a value-based economy and for a participatory society."

"Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) in most European Union countries it is variously seen as an alternative response to the financial crisis, to the increasing unemployment and social inequality or as a claim from citizens and civil society to act and influence on their environment and to promote a social transformation. In some countries it has become a proven economic model and is submitted to political statements.“Community Works! Iniciativas por la Economía Social y Solidaria” – European strategic partnership project - wants to gather different forces of education, economy and public fields - training enterprises, universities, non-formal education organisations, local authorities and social/solidarity economy networks - in order to identify common criteria, strategies and tools to promote Social and Solidarity Economy awareness, recognition, development and advocacy, and specifically to:- create a network and exchange good practices among actors – technicians, professionals and responsible - in the field of Social and Solidarity Economy;- research/analyse in the consortium countries the current situation of Social and Solidarity Economy and the impact of this field upon local development, employment and education;- develop a common framework of specified and recognized competences in Social and Solidarity Economy and build on it specific training modules - based on non-formal learning but connected to formal education - to be used in different sectors, with a special focus on young entrepreneurs in this field;- develop useful tools and events to enable the involved actors to promote awareness on Social and Solidarity Economy with their target groups and to advocate for a European recognition of it;- reinforce the capacity of the consortium organisations to link coherently their activity with Social and Solidarity Economy.An Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership allows bridging educational needs and raise of competences, active citizenship and entrepreneurship (especially of young people, the entrepreneurs of tomorrow) in an economy based on values, innovation and sustainable local development.Nexes has involved other 8 organisations in the creation of the consortium motivated for the development of a Social and Solidarity Economy: Citizens in Action (GR), Kaliedo’Scop (FR), Vedogiovane (IT), Consilium (UK) y Xarxa d’Economia Solidaria (ES), Mirror Development (UK), MIFE Loire Sud (FR) y Université Jean Monnet (FR).Project activities are divided into management activities, transnational meetings (three: initial one, intermediate, final evaluation), intellectual outputs (four: State of the Art, Portfolio of skills, training modules, virtual game), learning activities (training course on entrepreneurship in SSE, to test the training modules created), multiplication event (final Seminar).The activities are designed for the partners consortium and collaborating organizations interested in promoting the SSE. About 300 people will participate at local or international level: youth workers, professionals and experts of non-formal education, trainers, educators, practitioners and decision makers in educational and training institutions (universities, professional institutes, etc.) professionals and experts del promoting the entrepreneurship of youngsters and immigrants, representatives and decision makers of public institutions.The results aimed to be achieved: - The analysis of the state of the art of the SEE sector in some of the European countries;- Creating useful and innovative tools (ie: State of the Art of SSE, Portfolio of SSE skills, training modules - tested at local and international level - on entrepreneurship in SSE, a virtual educational game, a European seminar for discussion and dissemination of products); - Strengthening of the partner organizations of the consortium in their policy to promote the SSE; - The consolidation of a consortium of partners interested in promoting active participation and entrepreneurship, especially of young people, through SSE; - The fact that recognition, networking and tools created have ""contaminated"" more actors to create territorial cooperation links, and to support new initiatives of SSE.All these results will be a concrete, useful and available for the use of a wide range of actors in SSE sector once the project is finished. The dissemination and exploitation strategy will reach a local, regional, national and international level, in order to provide a long lasting impact of the project and its results, thus in that way promoting sustainability of the project.We aim to promote strategic alliances of multisectorial actors to strengthen SSE initiatives, create a manifesto to demand recognition of the sector in different EU countries, encourage exploration of the state of art and promote European status of the SSE, the connection of SSE products with educational and youth policies at European level."