<< Background >>According to the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT 2018), “women are the largest untapped entrepreneurial and leadership potential in Europe”. Only 14.8% of startup founders in Europe are female, and Europe as a whole has the lowest early-stage female involvement in entrepreneurship (The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) because they believe that they do not have access to the same entrepreneurship training and opportunities as men (OECD/European Union, 2016). At EU level, only 2.9% of women were involved in starting a business between 2014 and 2018 vs. 5.3% of men (OECD 2018). This Erasmus+ project aims at providing a solution to the lack of inclusivity in entrepreneurship, and especially social entrepreneurship towards women, by acting directly on the organizations which support them on a daily basis. Today, many support structures for entrepreneurs do not sufficiently integrate gender equality at structural level and project level, which leads to less opportunities for women entrepreneurs. In fact, if those in charge or supporting and training women social entrepreneurs are themselves not trained and lack the tools to support these women, women’s access to entrepreneurship is hindered. On the other hand, structures with expertise on gender equality issues have not had the opportunity of sharing their formalized good practices with other actors. This lack of communication and sharing of expertise was seen as an opportunity for an Erasmus+ project in the field of VET education.We therefore applied for this project to achieve a sharing of expertise between actors supporting social entrepreneurs and actors supporting gender equality. Our project stems from a common desire of the partners to increase gender-inclusivity in their practices and foster women entrepreneurship in Europe. By bringing together different European organizations working with women social entrepreneurs and/or working on gender-inclusion issues, our project can achieve its goal.Thanks to the project, partners will be able to formalize good practices and tools on gender inclusion at structure and project levels and integrate gender at every level of their structure and activities, thus providing better training and opportunities to female entrepreneurs. In turn, these tools and methods will be disseminated at regional, national and European scale to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem that is more inclusive towards women.<< Objectives >>Our project aims at improving the capacity and gender mainstreaming of entrepreneurial support structures to improve the quality of training and support women social entrepreneurs receive in Europe. By allowing support structures and their staff to better integrate women’s needs in their activities, our project seeks to encourage more women to develop sustainable entrepreneurial projects. Through cooperation, tools and methodology creation, our project will improve the capacity and gender mainstreaming of entrepreneurial support structures and therefore provide opportunities for a wide range of women across Europe to develop entrepreneurial projects. In order to achieve this goal, our consortium has defined three specific project objectives. - The first objective is to increase the integration of gender at a structural level for entrepreneurial ecosystem structures. This will be done thanks to a method developed based on identified partners’ and ecosystems’ needs and the gender expertise of Empow’her and Women on Top. - The second objective of the project is to create tools, resources, and methodological and training content which fits women’s needs and to allow organizations supporting entrepreneurs to run tailored support programs. - The last objective of this project is to create and disseminate the tools and methods created, as well as the identified good practices on gender mainstreaming and gender-sensitive entrepreneurial support to other structures at European and Mediterannean level to have a wide-reaching impact.Overall, the expected impact of the project is to make the entrepreneurial ecosystem more diverse and inclusive towards women, and to allow women entrepreneurs to succeed in overcoming the difficulties they face and in developing their business project thanks to the gender sensitive support they will have received.<< Implementation >>Our project is divided into three phases and 12 project activities, leading to the achievement of the objectives. PHASE 1: Creation of tools, resources, and training content that better fit women’s needs and increase the integration of gender equality at the level of support structures. A1- Confirmation of the needs of the consortium's structures that support women social entrepreneurs, to take into account the Covid-crisis impact. A2- Ecosystem mapping to better understand the context and specificities of each support structure A3 - Creation of a method to integrate gender equality issues in the practices and activities of the structures (communication, HR, governance, advocacy, supporting entrepreneurs) A4 - Creation of training tools to increase the skills of the staff of the structures to train and support women social entrepreneursA5 - Construction of coaching techniques and animation to implement the training courses (for the staff of support structures and for women entrepreneurs)A6 - Design of a manual of good practices for structures and networks of support for social entrepreneurs. PHASE 2 : Testing these new tools and methodology within the consortium’s operational partners A7 - Organization of 2 trainings for the staff of the partner organizations to test the new tools and methods developed as part of phase 1A8 - Implementation of the methodology of integration of gender equality issues within the structures A9 – Adaptation of the support programs of each organization to better integrate women’s needs A10 - Adjusting the training tools and methodology created based on feedback from the field PHASE 3: Dissemination of the methodology and good practices to support women entrepreneurs and integrate gender equality at the structure level. A11 - Organization of national multiplier events to disseminate project results. A12 - Organization of the final event to present all the results to local actors and partners.<< Results >>Our project is built around three main project results. The first project result would be the creation of a method for organizations to integrate gender equality issues at the structure level, on strategic, human resources or communication issues. The creation of this method will be led by Women On Top and adapted to the specific needs of entrepreneurial support structures in Europe, which will also take into account the effects of the Covid-19 crisis. It will be appropriated and tested within each partner organization, before European dissemination.The second project result would be the creation of training tools to increase the skills of the staff of the structures and enable them to better train and support women social entrepreneurs. These new tools and methodology will be tested by partners, then updated, before being disseminated at European level.The third project result is the creation and the dissemination at European level of a manual of good practices for gender integration at structure and at program level, designed to help ecosystem structures be more inclusive towards women social entrepreneurs.In addition to these project results, two training activities will be organized by the partners to roll-out the method and tools produced within many organizations. Five multiplier events will also be organized to spread project results at national and at European levels.

We4Change aims to contribute to the EU Youth Strategy by engaging, connecting and empowering young people with skills and confidence to contribute to prosperous, cohesive and sustainable societies. Specifically by adopting a gender specific approach, the We4Change project is concentrated on empowering girls and young women (aged 15-25) from disadvantaged backgrounds and supporting them to build their confidence, develop digital and innovation skills, increase civic engagement and unlock their changemaking potential from a young age. Responding directly to the needs of girls and young women to break down stereotypes, develop their creativity and confidence and contribute to society, the project will offer an innovative combination of hands-on activities, training on digital, innovation and environmental awareness skills, problem-solving and co-creation of prototypes to address climate change and drive environmental transformation. In this respect, during the We4Change project the following activities, outputs and results are foreseen: 1. The project will develop the We4Change Changemakers Event Curriculum, that will offer the basis for organising and facilitating 15 Changemakers events in 5 European countries whereby more than 200 socioeconomically disadvantaged girls and young women will be provided with the skills, resources, inspiration and confidence to collectively design projects that address climate change. 2. We will create the We4Change “Train the Trainers” Programme and train and enable more than 50 youth workers and trainers to deliver effectively the We4Change events.3. We will develop the We4Change “Train the Mentors” Programme offering a training package for adult women who will be involved in the project to provide mentoring, coaching and role models for girls and young women from disadvantaged backgrounds. We expect to train and engage more than 50 women mentors.4. Our team will create and promote 40 Inspirational videos showcasing how young girls and women from disadvantaged backgrounds are leading positive change in their communities.5. Finally, the project will develop the We4Change community platform that will act as a unique reference point for engaging girls and women from any background to raise their voice on climate change and to collectively innovate to deliver a sustainable future.