Europe needs more young people with green entrepreneurship skills if it is to achieve its EU2020 target of ‘Sustainable growth - for a resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy.’ Delivering this target requires young people with the skills, knowledge and commitment to build a more competitive low-carbon economy that makes efficient and sustainable use of resources, protects the environment, reduces emissions and prevents biodiversity loss. The green economy is an increasing source of jobs in Europe (CEDEFOP) and Eurobarometer (2013) reports that green skills in SMEs are increasing with 4/10 employing at least one full-time employee working in a green job. Recent research shows that start-up rates increase by as much as 20% when entrepreneurship lessons are provided in schools. The GEE (Green Entrepreneurship Europe) project brings together the twin necessities of a green economy and increased entrepreneurship that provides meaningful jobs and restores our natural wealth. GEE will improve the capacity of schools to teach the competencies and skills for young people to take an active role in the green economy and strengthen cooperation between school and the world of work. GEE has been identified by the partners as a response to the need for a pan-European response to building the green economy, a belief shared by our project schools that have identified entrepreneurship education as a priority.The overall objective of GEE is ‘to improve the key competencies and skills of young people to take an active role in building the green economy and strengthen cooperation between school and the world of work.’ This project aims to achieve this through linked specific objectives:• Improving the capacity of schools to connect learning with the world of work within the context of building a green economy.• Providing pupils with a range of meaningful real-world experiences linking the classroom with business and entrepreneurship.• Developing the skills and competencies of pupils to rethink business models in-line with the need to build a green economy.• Enhancing the ability of teachers to teach entrepreneurship.• Increasing the sharing of educational resources for schools across Europe.• Sharing and enhancing good practice in integrating sustainable development into business thinking.In delivering the specific objectives listed above we will aim to work with 15 associate secondary schools in five countries, 30 teachers and approximately 375 pupils. Through dissemination and exploitation activities we aim to reach a further 125 secondary schools, impacting 3125 pupils, and 250 teachers as well as education providers and local education departments. The project results will be freely available as open online resources during and beyond the project.The overall impact of GEE will be to improve the competencies and skills of young people to take an active role in building the green economy and strengthen cooperation between school and the world of work. Pupils will benefit from entrepreneurial learning, developing business knowledge, essential skills and attitudes including developing: creativity, initiative, tenacity, teamwork, an understanding of risk and a sense of responsibility. This is the entrepreneurial mind-set that helps entrepreneurs transform ideas into action and also significantly increases employability.GEE blends two learning approaches: learning outside the classroom and real world learning. Learning is embedded through students' direct contact with business and entrepreneurs. We will connect schools with local businesses and entrepreneurs so that they can work together to develop green business plans and ideas for new products based on reality rather than fantasy. GEE methods develop entrepreneurial solutions that support a green and sustainable economy. To achieve this it uses the natural world as a metaphor and measure for sustainability. Outdoor learning helps pupils understand how nature works and the key operating principles. For example, in nature, waste from one process is food for another thus creating a virtuous cycle rather than the linear take-make-dump found in traditional business models. GEE applies these principles from nature to business through creating entrepreneurship ideas. Pupils use natural principles to explore what some businesses are already achieving (GEE case studies), work with real businesses and entrepreneurs through our Coffee House Challenge Events, and finally develop their own business ideas and plans which are shared with local business.In addition to the activities developed for pupils, we will offer online and face-to-face support for teachers and schools, and disseminate the results widely through teacher seminars, conferences and a project website.

The project “VET for Employment” (VET4E), led by the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia (LDDK), aims at:- improving availability of qualified workforce through improving compliance of VET to the labour market needs;- facilitating and supporting organisation of qualitative traineeships and work based learning in vocational education and training (VET) system and- developing new tools for the use by the employers and VET institutions to promote work based learning in VET and to support employers, VET institutions and students in human resource development through traineeships. The motivation for the project lies in the problems identified in partner countries: rather low prestige of VET, limited opportunities for qualitative traineeships, low involvement of employers, low level of cooperation between VET institutions and employers, high youth unemployment, problematic transition from education institutions to labour market. In order to address these problems, project will carry out a number of activities aimed at improving availability of qualitative traineeship opportunities and to strengthen employers’ involvement in VET. The main activities planned to reach these goals are:- Carrying out a study on availability, quality and costs and benefits of traineeships in Latvia;- Organising learning visits to Austria and Germany to learn from well-established dual VET systems;- Developing an action plan for improvement of traineeships in Latvia;- Carrying out feasibility study on vocational education in Lithuania; and mutually learning between Latvia and Lithuania in the process of implementing VET reforms;- Developing IT tool on career portal prakse.lv (traineeship.lv) which would ensure opportunity to organise and implement traineeships and work based learning in easy and comfortable way, as well as to collect and analyse data on traineeships- To implement work based learning programmes in two sectors – metalworking sector and pharmacy sector. - To implement a number of initiatives/ mini pilotprojects to promote new IT tool, traineeships and work based learning in different sectors such as facilitating traineeships, namely, combining traineeships in several companies, career support activities, organising training for trainers in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science, developing mobility projects, organising professional skills competition, certification of traineeship places, organising seminars, organising site visits of pupils or VET trainers in companies, examining work safety during traineeships, piloting examination developed and organised by employers.The main result of the project will be increased number of qualitative traineeship opportunities. The consortium is made of partners from Latvia, Lithuania, Austria and Germany. Partners include the national and sectorial employer organisations, trade union organisation, VET institutions, research and training institution, as well as private companies. Project is also endorsed by the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia, National Centre for Education and the Municipality of Riga.