"""EntreprenHour"" (EH) is a Strategic Partnership in the youth field aimed at promoting the role of Social Entrepreneurship (SE), in combination with Non Formal Education (NFE) and practical learning, as a tool for enhancing social inclusion and employability of disadvantaged sectors of the youth population.The direct target group of the project are young NEETs (not employed in education, training or in the labour market) aged 18-25 in all partner countries (Sweden, Italy, Croatia and Germany) and Europe. The indirect target group is composed of youth operators, NGOs and institutions involved in the youth dimension of non formal learning (youth centers, Sport clubs and associations, informal groups of young people) at the different levels (from the local to the European), in partner countries and beyond.The European Union's ""Strategic Framework for European cooperation in education and training"" (ET 2020 strategy) prioritizes the development of human capital and the update of existing education/training policies and programmes to the needs of an ever-evolving global reality as strategic focuses for European societies to be concretely able to withstand the challenges brought about by the XXI century, not least globalization and the transition to a knowledge-based society, offering opportunities of employability and prosperity to all European citizens. The specific objectives underpinning the implementation and monitoring of the Strategy include the reduction of early leavers from education and training to less than 10% by 2020 as well as promoting the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills/attitudes and of basic and transversal skills at all levels of European societies. The European Youth Strategy reflects this approach in the field of Youth by setting specific priorities related to the promotion of youth entrepreneurship, developing young people's access to high quality education and training as well as reducing early school leaving.An antinomy between set expectations and factual developments emerges from a context analysis of existing challenges, particularly in sensitive portions of the youth population. The inclusion deficit left open by formal educational setups combines with the structural bias of the labour market againstlow-qualified profiles, determining a concerning proportion of long-term unemployed among the youth. According to European statistics, 12,5% of the EU population between 15 and 24 belong to the NEET category. All partner countries are faced by the challenge of NEETs in the youth population (11,9% in Italy, 14,3% in Bulgaria, 4,1% in Germany and 3,7% in Sweden).The partial inability of formal education and participation circuits to fill gaps in employability, personal development and participation opportunities is a crucial factor hampering the development of skills and competences which would allow youth NEETs to achieve personal and educational fulfillment as well as be actively engaged in participation within their local communities, thus fueling a self- perpetuating cycle of disadvantage and exclusion.EH aims at addressing this challenge through cooperation among countries affected by massive youth unemployment phenomena, with a concrete focus on extracting the educational potential of Urban Needs’ Analysis, Storytelling, Marketing and Intercultural Communication as NFE pathways to foster entrepreneurial empowerment and concrete transition from ideas to action in the field of Social Entrepreneurship among the youth, in combination with NFE.Project methodology will integrate the 4 identified approaches into functionally distinguished components of a comprehensive process of entrepreneurial development:1)Urban Needs’ Analysis, as an approach for the identification of the grassroots local community needs to be catered by means of Social Entrepreneurship action.2)Storytelling, as an instrument of structuring business ideas, establishing a clear/cut identity of social enterprises and related initiatives/products as well as fostering internal cohesion through the establishment of a defined corporate identity.3)ICT, as a crucial area of expertise of a social entrepreneur profile and sector of direct entrepreneurial engagement.4)Intercultural Communication, as a pathway to foster business development by means of effective communication campaigns bridging cultural divides.Steps of project cycle will be:-Sharing and coordinated research on the existing good practices, which will be reported in state-of-the-art Reports and filtered into educational Toolkits for testing with the ultimate target group.-Testing and reporting: A Blended Youth Mobility involving representatives of the ultimate target group (NEETs aged 18-25) will test each Toolkit (1 BMYP per toolkit) and develop the related learning outcomes in participants.-Processing: Assessment of testing results for the production of an integrated Format combining the areas of learning addressed in the Toolkits."

Strate-CROWD is a 24 months long Strategic Partnership aiming to enhance the collaboration a the transnational and cross-sectorial partnership among partners coming from Sweden, Greece, Italy and Spain, experienced in the field of Non Formal Education (NFE), innovation, ICTs, entrepreneurship, inclusion, gamification, unconventional learning methodologies, businesses and SME, lead to the creation of the idea of a project that looks at the current European needs and that intends to tackle the problems with an impact already in the short term.Strate-CROWD-Funding project (STRATE-CROWD) is a project that looks toward the necessity of support disadvantaged (i.e. coming from a difficult family background) young people (aged 18-30), aspiring social entrepreneurs who want to acquire entrepreneurial and crowdfunding skills and knowledge in order to transform their ideas into reality helped by young educators. The latter’s (aged 20-30), lacking about crowdfunding knowledge but experienced in Non-Formal Education (NFE) will improve, duringthe project completion, their knowledge and skills in NFE linked with entrepreneurship, in order to develop concrete methodology trough which, enhance disadvantaged young people ideas in the social entrepreneurship field. The pivot element of the project is the crowdfunding, a growing reality in Europe, which can represent the bridge between the ideas of the young people and the concrete realization of them by gaining funds for the implementation of the same idea. The use of the crowdfunding will introduce young people to the labour market which needs to be known as well. For these reasons, STRATE-CROWD will develop Outputs that will support both young educators and aspiring young social entrepreneurs in properly get in contact with the knowledge and skills required for a comprehensive understanding of the market, its needs and the tools for entering in the market.The output that will be created are four:1)Portfolio of best practices and methodologies linking NFE, crowdfunding and market opportunities, which will be a milestone for both the targets in order to acquire knowledge.2)Board game, exploiting the recent conclusion about gamification and learning approaches, that will be forged around the development of an idea that has the intention to be funded. The board game will simulate all the steps required for passing from a good but confused idea to a project valid for obtaining funds through crowdfunding, guiding the young people and the educators among each step.3)Handbook of an innovative training model merging NFE and crowdfunding in order to encounter the market needs through proper means and tools contained in the training model itself. The training model is directed to the Young Educators who needs innovative ways through which approach these topics and through how to be able to properly transfer this acquired knowledge to young people.4)Digital contents: A mobile application, specular to the board game, available for the major platforms and including a network for peers. 2 MOOC one per target, allowing the upskill and the acquisition of knowledge in the most common way nowadays, available for everyone with one click. STRATE-CROWD Web platform which will contain all the digital contents of the project and will be the digital center of the actions networking around the project.The project foresees to achieve the upskilling of 30 young educators within a Blended Learning Mobility, educators that will be able, in a second phase of the project to transfer knowledge among the disadvantaged young aspiring social entrepreneurs during the local training course. All the project activities intend to have an impact on the targets and on the society around them. Young educators, updated, will be able to transfer knowledge in any contest and toward different targets, having an impact; the same impact that STRATE-CROWD foresees to have at national and international level thanks to the digital tools.Young disadvantaged aspiring entrepreneurs, empowered by the contents acquired during the local training courses, will be able to face the market needs and the labour market, challenging themselves and testing their ideas in order to fulfill the entrance in the labour market which is lacking of a generational change which will bring new ideas and will stimulate other newcomers already in the short term.