The project ‘Social Entrepreneurship in Youth Work - Developing employability and innovations amongst the youth people’ was an 18-month strategic partnership established among organisations from Malta, Belgium and Greece with the aim to engage in the promotion of entrepreneurship education in youth work. This strategic partnership emerged as a result of previous collaboration of the partner organizations, which recognized the need to develop strategic tools and motivate youth organizations to provide youth (social) entrepreneurship support and further contribute to this topic.The partnership brought together: Gozo Youth Council - one of the biggest youth work providers in Malta with experience in working on youth unemployment and supporting young people’s integration in society, the Institute for Entrepreneurship Development - a Greek organisation committed to the promotion of innovation and enhancing the spirit of entrepreneurship, and finally OTB International - a Belgium association providing mainly international youth work training and development, which offered a different perspective from the policy side and the side of the European level youth field. The project addressed the following set of objectives: - To build capacities of youth workers which enable them to provide quality youth work programmes on entrepreneurial education and social entrepreneurship;- To reflect on the competences necessary for youth workers to act as motivators both of youth (social) entrepreneurship and the improvement of lifelong learning competences of youth in this area;- To develop and test specific youth work tools as examples of non-formal learning in entrepreneurial education;- To develop participants’ understanding and knowledge of (social) entrepreneurship and its links to youth work systems and to discuss their applicability in different contexts;- To exchange good practices in youth work among youth workers and their associations from the 3 participating countries, but also at European level.The project produced 2 outputs (Mentorship Guideline for Mentoring Youth Entrepreneurship and Training kit on entrepreneurship for youth work organizations), yielded 3 multipliers events related to the development and promotion of these outputs and implemented 1 learning activity with the aim of building the capacities of youth workers to act as motivators of social entrepreneurship among youth in their local realities. As the main result, the project involved 116 young people, youth workers, activists and volunteers, in order to enhance the youth field with perspectives in implementing entrepreneurship education in youth work.

The project will involve the following activities: 1. Organization of 6 transnational project partner meetings; 2. Developing 4 webinar curricula for non-formal education with young people 4. Further development and updating of 1 (existing) regional portal on e-learning; 4. Organization of at least 36 webinars (12 by project partner) delivering the developed webinar curricula for young people. The 6 transnational project meetings will serve the purpose of regular project coordination and communication. Three of the meetings will be held in the first year of implementation and the other three in the second year of implementation. The curricula will be developed in four broad thematic areas of particular relevance to non-formal education work with youth, including employment/employability, civic engagement and empowerment, intercultural education, and social entrepreneurship. The specific webinar themes will be developed collaboratively by the partners and based on assessment of themes and issues which are of particular interest to young people. Each curricula will consist of a series of short (40-60 minute) classes, which will combine lectures and discussions. To the extent possible (to be assessed) some curricula could be combined with in-between sessions individual assignments (homework). The intention however will be not to overburden participants with assignments given the generally low interest in education among young people. The regional portal on e-learning will aim to serve as a central resource for young learners who are interested in webinars and online courses. The portal will collect and disseminate information on: available webinars in the broader region, it will store resources on e-learning which will be collected from relevant stakeholders; it will feature articles and discussions on e-learning, provide technical advice, etc. Specific sections of the web portal and the associated social network pages will be dedicated to young learners. The web portal will be managed by the coordinator, but all partners will take part in provision of content and data. They will be required to identify webinar opportunities, invite experts to contribute, write articles themselves, share content, promote the portal to young people, take part in and moderate discussions, promote online surveys, etc. The portal will be a major effort in the project and it will act as the principal dissemination tool hence the contribution of each partner will be coordinated on regular basis. The project partners will organize at least 36 webinars during the project. Each partner will be required to organize at least 12 webinars (6 per year). The webinars will be an educational vehicle which will deliver the developed curricula to young learners across the region. In addition, the webinars will be a dissemination tool and they will promote the benefits of webinar-based teaching. Each partner will be responsible for broadly promoting its webinars, participant selection and registration, selection of presenters and discussants, and delivery of the webinar. The objectives of the webinars will be consistent and some of the core material will be common but the partners will have the autonomy to produce their own webinar. They could decide on selection of discussants, specific focus of their presentations, etc. The primary target of the webinars will be young learners from the partner countries and the SEE region

"Scientific evidence shows that physical inactivity is a leading risk factor for poor health, going well beyond issues related to weight control and influencing both physical and mental well-being. Over the past few years, the promotion of physical activity has increasingly been recognized in Europe as a priority for public health, and many countries have responded through the development of policies and interventions.Physical activity can be done in different environments and in different environmental conditions. Outdoor sports and outdoor physical activity solutions have many benefits from the aspect of physical and mental health, environment protection, availability, sustainability etc. The importance of participating in outdoor sports and physical activities as well as being outdoor and active in nature has especially become significant in the last few months when pandemic with COVID – 19 started. The pandemic did not cause just fear, social distancing and isolation. It also affected people’s movement habits, social interaction and communication affecting negatively on physical activity level, physical, mental and emotional health. Therefore, one of the focuses of the project will be to support mental and emotional health and improve social connectedness by promoting outdoor activities and outdoor education. As schools return, outdoor learning needs to be a central part of each school’s efforts to maintain restricted social bubbles and distance between students. As a result, many curricular lessons will have to be taken outdoors in the school grounds, parks or other outdoor spaces. In this regard, the project will aim to support teaching staff in schools, universities and other educational institutions in the transition into new ways of working by promoting outdoor learning and outdoor education.Based on the previously mentioned intentions, we built our project idea on the following three postulates: benefits from outdoor participation and activities for physical and mental health, storytelling as an approach to inner personality and self – discovery and combining them in order to support social connection and cohesion among youngsters. The project aims to transform educational practices, moving from frequent indoor activities to regular use of the outdoor environment and use it as tools for improvement of social connectedness and social cohesion of youth. In this project, we present the main dimensions related to outdoor activities and highlight the role of professionals and educators in creating quality outdoor play opportunities.The new applied methodology will evoke social inclusion, lifelong learning and survival skills among the youngsters. Through the connection to place, students will develop stronger environmental attitudes and civic behaviours. Through this kind of learning experiences, we will create the foundation of raising the next generation of active citizens who take care of their natural and human communities. In the same time, we will increase their motivation and outdoor participation trough creating challenges and games that will give educators new pointers for developing the new educational curricula. In the centre of the new learning, the methodology will be the art of storytelling. To make this happen we will bring researchers and youth workers from North Macedonia, Greece and Germany to develop the new outdoor-based learning methodology and to proposes 30 activities as a part of the Handbook. The youngsters have the central role in the project activities since their participation in the learning mobilities will bring valid pointers for the final version of the handbook. These learning trainings will cover all the important aspects of organizing outdoor activities including outdoor safety and prevention. As a result of these activities, we will have the first outdoor youth mentors who will be constantly engaged in the partner organization by supporting the outdoor events.The project results and will be reflected in the “Youth wellbeing and getting outdoors after Covid-19” Handbook, followed by the “30 Day Outdoor Journey” IT application. The application will be their personal diary with experiences and achievements that will have a motivating character. This application will aim to bring young people closer to the ""30 days challenge"" by having the mobile version and can be used on the spot. The handbook and the App will be available worldwide and can be used by individuals and or any educational institution.We do believe that the project results will contribute to the educational programs worldwide, will make the outdoor experience more playful and enjoyable and in the same time will help youngers to be more inclusive and connected with nature."

In the present period of severe economic crisis and economic recession, social entrepreneurship is one of the main issues at a European and national public policy level. The European Commission stresses that there are cultural factors which discourage too many people from starting a business and therefore, there is a need to develop a strong entrepreneurial culture among EU citizens in general. Social economy within the field of social entrepreneurship comes not only to fight exclusion and unemployment (which has reached a pick of 11%), but additionally to address inexorable social problems which are directly interwoven with global poverty, adverse climate changes and other environmental problems, misuse of energy and power, inadequate health services, obsolete or negligible education etc. 'Society Profits' project, which constitutes the distillate of the collaboration between three NGOs, the Cypriot CIP, the Greek Institute of Entrepreneurship Development and the Portuguese Madan Parque, in line with the Europe 2020 strategy, has managed to address in various ways all the seven policy flagships of EU under the emphasis of growth, through which the European Commission aspires to create ICT- based products that will generate growth, and skill-building and at the same time address global challenges.Accordingly, 'Society Profits' project has primarily aimed at the education of the next generation of entrepreneurs by influential multipliers such as youth organizations, equipped and trained through the project’s on-line platform and on-line training course. Specifically, the first and the second output of the project consists of an on-line training course, focusing on the ways in which social entrepreneurs draw upon business techniques and private sector approaches in order to resolve social, cultural and environmental problems such as to end poverty, to improve the standard of living, to support vulnerable population etc. The on-line training course provides different definitions of social entrepreneurship, contemporary business structures falling under different applicable models and open source technological innovation. These targets are being achieved by the integration of a range of specially-designed, ICT tools and educational material, including quizzes, which will be designed in such a way to facilitate interactivity within an alternative way of modern learning, various free accounting soft wares like ‘Wave’ which will enable educators to communicate with young people who are seeking to run a social business, narrative e-videos related to successful examples of local social entrepreneurs regarding the procedure they came up with a social business idea as well as info-packs correlated with on-going online applications, online environments and data on local and global fund opportunities deriving from various sectors, from governments to private investors. In general, the on-line training course has been guiding the users, through personalized e-activities, to create their unique path, which starts from an innovative idea and ends up with an integrated business plan, by simultaneously emphasizing on possible risks (financial, legal etc) that the social enterprise might encounter.On the other hand, a handy e-platform (O3) is seeking to give practical information to the user on how to be a part of a strong, well-established European network related to social entrepreneurship. Thereby, e-platform is enriched with a ‘Directory of social enterprises’ in the EU, which is basically a list with the ‘most impactful social enterprises operating in EU, in terms of the number of beneficiaries and the uniqueness of each social enterprise’, with which the partnership has communicated in order to establish a collaboration with young people both for internship purposes, source sharing or any other kind of collaboration. Also, the e-platform provides an on-line space that collects educational non-formal tools related to social entrepreneurship, an on-line forum where newcomers can raise questions in order to be answered by well-experienced educators and lastly, a space for Validation of the educational material provided, given by relevant stakeholders and well-reputed social entrepreneurs.Partners are committed to achieve stakeholder and institutional buy-in. Through the networks established, the participatory action research approach adopted and institutional stakeholder events planned, partners have created a sense of ownership among the widest cross-section of stakeholders during the project life-cycle and promote widespread use of the platform. The groups of stakeholders (Youth Organizations, Higher Education Institutions, Research and Development Centers, Public Institutions and Social Services, Local Community Groups and Authorities, CSO's, Professional Networks, Policy Makers) that have been involved in each country, demonstrate the new on-line environments, thus encouraging their continued support.

"Almost recently, the European Union has been hit by the economic crisis. More specifically, the European South, which is mainly devoted to agriculture, has been in the centre of the storm, with youth unemployment to be the most severe. Despite the fact that, according to Eurostat, the regions in the South have suffered the most as seem to be even more traumatized by the economic consequences, these same countries have given signs of progress concerning the increasing trends in the number of young people who decided, instead of searching for a job in the city, to go to the countryside and start their own business with a specific focus on agriculture and organic farming. However, as has been described by the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA), the majority of them lack the necessary skills and competences as many of them have not studied in the sector but took over their family business (e.g family inheritance) or decided to work in the sector due to the high rates of unemployment, which still remains an unresolved problem in the Southern EU region. Under this spirit, “Grow Green” seeks to manage the combination of the above issues in order to tackle them with a holistic, practical approach. For that reason the project is not merely limited in helping young people to construct their business ideas correlated to the agricultural sector, but it goes even deeper; seeking to provide concrete guidelines on how to develop the necessary skills and competences to accomplish the above target by using innovative ideas and methods, with the scope to renew the whole sector of agriculture, based also on the EU’s Recommendation on ""Youth Guarantee"", already adopted since 2013. Besides, for the period 2014-2020, EU has set as one of its main objectives, the reinforcement of agriculture and organic farming and simultaneously the enhancement of young farmers, by providing them the necessary to get into the entrepreneurship sector. ‘Grow Green’ comes to complete this boost by providing young farmers with all the information needed in order to be capable to convert their business into profitable and sound enterprises. In that way, ‘Grow Green’ will not only enrich young professionals’ knowledge concerning the field, but will also contribute to addressing the issue of youth unemployment by boosting rural and regional economy through the creation of new agribusinesses. More specifically, the amplification of education in combination with the creation of an unprecedented strong networking amongst young people in the sector of agriculture and bio-agriculture will definitely help to refresh the economic activities in rural areas, thus aiming to regional development, a fact that provides an additional quality to the project. ""Grow Green"" focuses on the: 1. Decrease of youth unemployment by involving more young people in the agriculture sector. 2. Reduction of NEET (referring to a person who is not in employment, education or training), by mostly focusing and approaching countries which have both high rates of NEET, but also growth potential of the agro-food sector. 3. Boost of agro-entrepreneurial culture amongst young people. Therefore, it will set up a package of a 'web platform' and educational videos that will: - inform young people on both the agricultural market trends and the business environment of agriculture. - meliorate young people’s knowledge and skills in order to strengthen their agro-business profile. -evolve good practices, and particularly educational methods on agricultural fields, thus seeking to motivate youngsters to be involved with the agricultural sector. -assist young people already involved in the sector to develop and implement innovative practices in the agricultural sector. -create potential partnerships and future collaborations, through which new initiatives between experienced farmers and newcomers will arise. Furthermore, ‘Grow Green’ will give the opportunity to aspiring young farmers to move one step further in their training, by providing them a web platform specially-designed for the purposes of the project, where young farmers/participants will have the opportunity to identify the skills and knowledge needed to be involved in the sector in a successful way. It is equally important that ""Grow Green"" does not only focus on young people who either want to start their own agricultural business; it also seeks to provide additional knowledge and skills to persons who are already engaged in the agricultural and bio-agricultural sector whilst simultaneously ensuring the creation of a strong networking with other successful professionals. The consortium consist of the Cypriot NGO Citizens in Power, the Greek NGO iED and the Spanish company Red2Red. The three organizations share a common objective which is the development young people with necessary skills that contribute to their coveted entry into the business arena."