<< Objectives >>The SustainABLE project aims to achieve a behavioural change of adults working mainly in the community–based, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society (CSOs) organisations by raising awareness and developing competencies for implementing sustainable work practices based on key sustainability principles (i.e. circular economy, energy efficiency, sustainable food and mobility, remote work, etc.). It will be carried out by a consortium of partners from North Macedonia and Bulgaria.<< Implementation >>The proposal is structured around a comprehensive work programme consisting of 8 overreaching and interconnected activities:A.1 Project management and coordination A.2 Readiness diagnostics of NGOs and CSOs working in local economic and social development sectorsA.3 Guide and a roadmap for sustainable practices at the workplaceA.4 SustainABLE Training ProgrammeA.5 SustainABLE Train-the-trainers event in BulgariaA.6 Piloting and case studiesA.7 Dissemination and exploitation package<< Results >>Expected results:1) Readiness diagnostics tools of NGOs and CSOs working in local economic and social development sectors. 2) SustainABLE Guide and a Roadmap for sustainable practices at the workplace.3) SustainABLE Training Programme for experts/trainers, rural and urban practitioners4) Case studies of civil society organisations that have introduced sustainable work practices.5) Dissemination and exploitations activities.

The project SENSE (of) Community represents a strategic partnership supporting cooperation for exchange of good practices involving adult education organizations from 5 European countries: Romania, Croatia, Italy, Portugal and Bulgaria. The project will be developed on 17 months period between 1.10.2020 to 28.02.2022 and it addresses social inclusion, employability and entrepreneurial initiative of disadvantaged adult learners from rural regions and/or deprived communities and it aims to exploit the capability of a community-based entrepreneurship model as tool to raise employment, foster social inclusion and lifelong learning participation on 3 levels:- training of adult educators to be able to support low skilled and low qualified adults to better contribute in their communities and thus overcoming barriers- training of disadvantaged adult learners from our communities to be able to overcome barriers and benefit from life long learning opportunities- community development and social inclusion of our communities at a wider audience through the implementation of community-based businesses which will offer examples to key actors on how they can support community development through human development and empowering opportunities for community members Specific objectives of the project are: - To develop knowledge, skills and abilities of 20 adult educators from the partner countries in order to create community based entrepreneurship opportunities aimed at empowering disadvantaged adult learners from rural region and/or deprived communities through promotion of mutual employment of strengths and peer learning activities at international level. - To increase social inclusion, employability and entrepreneurial initiative among 25 disadvantaged adult learners from rural regions and/or deprived communities by delivering of 1 international learning activity on community-based entrepreneurship and 1 experiential learning program.The partners will put great efforts in ensuring project visibility and dissemination with a view to promote various approaches in terms of social inclusion, employability and entrepreneurial initiative among disadvantaged adults, to foster involvement of local experts and collaborating stakeholders in the flow of communication according to specific phases of the project, especially the experiential learning program to guarantee the initiative also after the completion of the project. In all the partners communities, the project will contribute to the strengthening of the professional development of our staff. Through the share of experiences and practices in the areas covered by the project, the partners will build on the existing methodologies, thus fostering the quality and improvement in adult education services and activities developed for the benefit of own adult learners. The trained adult educators will use the knowledge and skills acquired within our organizations and at community at large. At local level the project will improve the social and educational support for adults and social inclusion, increased attention in life long learning opportunities for the partner communities where is a strong need for this, an insight image on how community-based entrepreneurship can foster social inclusion and employability of adult learners. Through the implementation of the community-based businesses which will address the existent needs, the project will foster our communities development and will serve as good practice example and as a mean to raise interest of other community members for E+ opportunities and life long learning opportunities. At the national level, learning and applying the good practices in adult education helps to draw attention to the problems in the national adult education and make suggestions through national adult education networks to develop lifelong learning.At the European level, cooperation in adult education will increase among the partner countries. The good practices from different European countries set an example for the countries participating in the project to develop training activities and new offers and therefore align the quality of adult education in Europe. The partners will focus on ensuring a strong dissemination strategy to cover the promotion of various approaches in terms of social inclusion, employability and entrepreneurial initiative among disadvantaged adults in rural areas and transmitting the project's contribution to a wide range of initiatives and objectives at European and national level, such as the National lifelong learning strategies, the European agenda for adult education.

<< Objectives >>The main objective of the GrowthFundMe is to increase social inclusion, employability and entrepreneurial initiative among people and communities with fewer opportunities by promoting new forms of self-organisation, solidarity and citizenship, with crowd building, crowdfunding and crowdsourcing as social networking, communication and participation tools. The project combines the expertise of a diverse partnership bringing together five organisations from four countries led by Odisee (Belgium).<< Implementation >>GrowthFundMe will produce a variety of sustainable results built around a comprehensive work programme of 4 Work packages:WP1: Project ManagementWP2: Community-based entrepreneurial training programme delivered to communities with fewer opportunitiesWP3: Crowdfund Your Community-based Enterprise / Project - Training programme for community leadersWP4: GrowthFundMe - E-learning and Civic Crowdfunding Platform for community-based enterprise/initiatives/projects<< Results >>GrowthFundMe will be connecting civic crowdfunding and business training, with all the bonuses regarding mobilisation of the local resources and networking skills that come along. The project will build capacity and engage communities through the launch of crowdfunding campaigns, working to strengthen the digital skills and active engagement in view of promoting community-based entrepreneurship and change within their regions and communities.

According to the European Commission, DG Growth – Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, a major proportion of the EU's economy relates to the profit-oriented companies. However, there has been an increasing number of individuals and legal entities working in the fast-growing social economy. This envelops various types of cooperatives, mutual societies and other social enterprises, non-profit associations, foundations, and civil society organization. They operate a very broad number of commercial and non-commercial activities and provide a wide range of products and services across the European single market. Moreover, they generate millions of jobs. According to the EU statistical data, 2 million social economy enterprises operate in Europe which represents 10% of all businesses in the EU. More than 11 million people – about 6% of the EU’s employees – work for social economy enterprises. Moreover, these entities are the main generators of social innovation as their main objective is the economic, societal or environmental impact for the general interest.Inclusive business models, such as the ones mentioned above, target (working with/for) low-income people both as consumers and clients, and as producers and entrepreneurs. Through their services and products, they offer a prospect with the immediate impact on the population with fewer opportunities. This kind of initiatives could have more comprehensible visibility by utilization of the SROI approach and will be able to provide awareness, skills, and tools to social economy enterprises and individuals to present the value they create in a form which can be measured and valued in financial terms – monetization. Moreover, SROI can aid the process of improvement of the access to funding, visibility and/or optimization of the legal environment, such as public procurement policies. The project's trans-nationality elements will enable and underline the role of knowledge transfer among the consortium partners. All the activities will take into consideration the current situation and national capacities in order to have a well-grounded method for the implementation of educational and training units. The consortium is comprised of partners with well-established methodological approaches and years of experience in SROI such as in Austria, and partners versed in practices which relate to SROI. This will enhance the process of sharing experiences among the partners but, also establish a joint learning process and foster exchange processes between partners' countries. Issues that the project tries to tackle is the lack of structured educational approaches transformation of social values to monetarized values. Additionally, there is a lack of knowledge among private investors aiming for social impact and how to understand the real value of / measuring the social impact of the programmes, activities, and projects conducted by CSOs and social enterprises.The aim of the project is to increase the awareness and understanding of SROI as an impact measurement approach, improve the evidence base of impact created by social enterprises, non- profits, public institutions and companies, and improve the transparency in reporting on their impact. This aim will be achieved by specific objectives:- to provide - develop, test and pilot - an innovative educational and training programme based on real needs skills assessment of staff members as well as organizational practices related to practicing social returns on investment;- to create and pilot educational ICT platform for continuing and self-guided learning/training processThe SROI has wide application and as such it involves working with wide range of stakeholders/target groups among which are mid-line managers and board members of private companies, especially those interested in undertaking an SROI analysis, members of the civil society, particularly those interested in improving practice and take-up rates, and public authorities dealing with procurement issues and planning public investments. Finally, it is expected to have a wider impact in South Eastern Europe as the issues related to CSR and SROI are not implemented in a coherent and systemic way nor the entities engaged in measuring the social impact of their activities. It is expected, through continuing education and networking, to strengthen the links between companies and CSOs as well as CSOs with their constituents.

Learning2gether was a 24-month Erasmus + funded project aimed at promoting and improving NEETs' employability at a local, national and European level by increasing their knowledge of the latest digital tools for business and developing skills sharing opportunities with older employers and employees in SMEs. Additionally, the project aimed to utilize young people's knowledge and skills to improve the social media knowledge and digital skills of older employers and employees in SMEs by developing skills-sharing opportunities with the young NEETs. The project was implemented by a transnational consortium of 6 partners from 5 European countries. It was coordinated by Bifröst University, based in Bifröst, Iceland. The Learning2gether project was innovative as it promoted intergenerational education, by building on the strengths of different generations, specifically NEETs and older SME workers/owners. These groups were brought together to share their strengths and build their knowledge of skills that they needed to further develop to improve their employability (NEETs) and modernise their business (older SME workers/owners). The partnership built on previously adopted, successful tools, experiences and methodologies in order to ensure that the training programme had the right impact. The material that was developed was successful in reaching the project's objectives as it was based on strongly evaluated methodologies of other successfully implemented projects, so their effectiveness had been proven. Project partners have reached out to a great number of stakeholders, through research/teaching/training activities, through multiplier events and other dissemination activities. Overall, the project involved more participants than planned. Slightly fewer SME workers were recruited, but the number of pilot training participants exceeded plans, and so did the number of stakeholders reached through a successful series of multiplier events. How have we addressed the selected program priorities?The partnership has worked with young NEETs to specifically strengthen them as labor market participants and learnersSME Workers have gotten to know the value and skills that youth can bring to the workplace, f.ex. in the area of digital marketing and networkingThrough the research, recruiting, events and dissemination activities, awareness has been raised among key stakeholders within education, for labour market institutions, NGOs, municipalities etc.With sustainable, open, and ready to use learning materials and resources, opportunities are there for many to take this work forward, adopt the methods, or perhaps apply them to similar/related groupsThe Guidebook from IO5, Policy makers guide greatly facilitates adoption of Learning2gether by anyone active in education and trainingThe platform and all learning materials are openly available.The platform was built using open software toolsThe policy makers guide is a document that is essential to anyone interested in using the L2G outputs, and facilitates such adoption immenslyThe unexpected emphasis on distance/blended learning was immensely valueable to the partners, the NEETs, and onward to anyone interested in adopting the material How have we addressed the needs of the target group?The NEETs have developed their skills, being trained by both facilitators and SME workersThe SME workers have developed their skills, being trained by NEETsThe project participants have trained and developed high-quality diverse teaching skills, as already recorded. Both through developing and reviewing the material, through the Train the Trainers events, but also through the partnership's joint efforts to adapt the material for blended and distance learning.Learning2gether was an innovative project as it promoted intergenerational education, by drawing on the strengths of different generations, specifically NEETs and older SME workers or business owners. These groups were brought together during the project to build knowledge and develop skills that our competence framework suggested were important; for the NEETs on one hand to support them in finding their right track on the job market or education; and for the SME workers and business owners to hone their skills in digital marketing, social media and networking and even down to just basic computer skill set.