The crisis that Europe is facing has led to a sharp decline in economic activity and recession. The labour market is being severely hit and unemployment rates are increasing thus negatively affecting the EU’s potential growth. In this scenario, the aim is for Europe to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. EU rural development policy focuses on jobs, growth and sustainability as basic pillars. Rural areas shall fully exploit their potential, resources and human capital, and create high-quality and sustainable jobs. EU’s rural areas are diverse in terms of population, demography, economic and social structures, but most of them are highly suffering the negative impact of the crisis in terms of unemployment rate. To the known problems suffered by the general population in EU’s rural areas: * Ageing population.* Mass exodus to the cities.* Gaps in facilities.* Reduction of rural employment and lack of entrepreneurs.* Income p/c in rural areas is nearly half of urban income p/c.* Skills and educational attainment is generally lower in rural areas.We have to add specific problems facing by rural women:* Invisibility of her work.* Lack of infrastructure to balance their work and family life.* Serious difficulties in accessing the labour market.And relating self-employment, rural women could face to the following obstacles:* Territorial and social isolation problems.* Lack of confidence to raise their business ideas.* Minor number of business information points for supporting and accompanying.* Weaker marketing channels.* Difficult access to ICTs.So, general objective of WE-RUN project has been to offer new opportunities and innovative instruments to adult women living in rural areas for improving their qualifications and thus their levels of employability and integration into the labour market, mainly through entrepreneurship activities related to the New Yields of Employment (NYE) and emerging sectors. Therefore, main direct beneficiaries of WE-RUN were women living in rural areas (especially lowly qualified adults). Furthermore important stakeholders for the development of the project have been: rural women associations, adult education and training organizations, local businesses/enterprises associations, local/regional authorities and citizens in general.Main activities were:* Study-analysis on the relation between rural women and NYE and emerging sectors* Catalogue of innovative best practices on entrepreneurial rural women and NYE and emerging sectors* Training for rural women in entrepreneurship on NYE and emerging sectors* European Virtual Community of entrepreneurial rural women and NYE* Piloting: Launch time* One Multiplier eventWE-RUN, implemented through a partnership which includes 7 organisations from 6 countries, allowed reaching the following impacts:* Increasing levels of employability of rural women through the acquisition of new skills and competences.* Development of entrepreneurial capacity, primarily related to NYE.* Training in personal skills (autonomy, adaptability, sense of responsibility, communication, etc.).* Getting in touch directly with women from other EU's rural areas.* Increasing the self confidence of rural women in an individual and collective way.* Receiving a professional and individual counseling and tutoring for running its own business.* Active participation in consultation processes and in the design and implementation of innovative tools specifically addressed to the needs of female populations from different regions.* Identification of the existing relations between women from rural areas and the NYE.* Recognition of specific sectors with potential for being developed by rural women through entrepreneurship activities.* Reaching an optimal exploitation of existing social resources in the rural areas to achieve the real conciliation and make the leap to self-employment.* Awareness about the importance of training and the improvement of skills for rural women.* Building local capacity for employment and diversification.* Creation of permanent transnational networks for fostering the exchange of knowledge, experiences and expertise.* Creating synergies between public and private actors.* Fostering cooperation between partners and the main actors involved in the European labour market.In conclusion, WE-RUN has permitted women from rural areas to acquire and develop skills and competences needed for their employability and personal fulfillment, mainly through entrepreneurship in NYE, which is one of the strategic priorities recognized in the Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET 2020).

Nearly 100% of the population aged 15 are still at school. As the young grow older, there is a decrease in the proportion of them in education, while there is an increase in those on the labour market, whether it is employed or unemployed.In fact, more than 3.3 million young people (aged 15-24 years) were unemployed in Europe in 2019. Although the rate has decreased from 24% in 2013 to less than 15% in 2019, the youth unemployment rate is still remarkably high in the EU, and more than double the overall unemployment rate (less than 7%). But still with big differences between countries, because the youth unemployment rate is still much higher and even spiking in some Mediterranean countries.The levels of youth unemployment and inactivity are largely influenced by the economy but can also be due to other issues related to education, training, segmentation of the labour market, or even public services not tailored to the most vulnerable, including young people.High joblessness among young people represents a considerable loss of productive capacity that may lead to poverty and social exclusion throughout their lifetime.With the aim to tackle all these issues through strengthening the role of the non-professional social workforce, such as young volunteers, eight organisations from seven EU countries decided to join forces in the EYESA project. The main objective of the project was to develop certain skills and provide young people with tools that can help them improve their social performance, including undertaking entrepreneurial activities and contribute to increasing their employability.The EYESA activities follow a three-step approach:-Identify key skills-Analyse the skill gaps-Provide different tools to reduce those gapsEYESA project activities and methodology were built around three Intellectual Outputs. 1.Development of the Self-evaluation Tool (IO1). Although this activity was not finally funded under this ERASMUS+ grant, partners managed to develop it with their own resources. -Distribution of topics among partners: Basic social skills, Communication skills, Organisational skills, Creativity/proactivity, Entrepreneurship, Negotiation skills, Digital skills, and Team-building skills.-Preparation of questionnaire (all partners prepared a set of questions for the topic assigned).-Translation of the questionnaire into all partners’ languages.-Testing of the self-evaluation tool (over 200 replies).-Final report, including conclusions and recommendations.2.The curriculum and Skills-based Workshops.Once the key skills and the main gaps among young volunteers were identified, partners worked on the development of a curriculum to fill all these gaps to improve their social performance, and also the methodology to implement it in workshops. A)CURRICULUMThe development of the curriculum was coordinated by FBI although each partner was responsible for one thematic chapter. The Curriculum-Handbook provides a broad range of useful skills to improve the performance in social action and employability and to support empowerment into active membership of the European society.The curriculum was written in English and translated into all the partners' languages.B)SKILLS-BASED WORKSHOPSAfterward, LEB developed an innovative learning methodology to implement the curriculum in workshops in all countries in a similar way to test it. The methodology was written in English and translated into all the partners' languages.The tool contains:•A Workshop Agenda proposal with time and topic distribution•Methods for each module (one per topic)•A collection of Icebreaker, energizer, and feedback methods•Material for implementation•Additional E-Learning and MaterialPartners organised 7 workshops based on the EYESA curriculum with around 100 participants.3.The collaborative portalIt was coordinated by eShop with the aim to provide open tools and resources to enable young volunteers to exchange experiences, contents, and approaches in the field of volunteering. 127 posts - 1445 entries at the end of the project. In addition to the intellectual outputs, partners have held 4 transnational meetings with 59 participants in Sevilla (Spain), Innsbruck (Austria), Weimar (Germany) and Ljubljana (Slovenia) and organised 7 multiplier events to present main project results and outputs with more than 230 participants. The impact of EYESA project on direct participants has been:-An increase in personal and entrepreneurial skills and of their employability.-Sense of belonging to the EU.-Improved curriculum.-Practical experience: learning by doing. -Recognition of their skills or information about how to do it.Participating organisations have learnt from each other and widened their links with other local and regional organisations working in the same field of activity.In the medium or long-term partners will keep on using the material produced in EYESA project.

The economic and social crisis that Europe is facing has led to a sharp decline in economic activity and recession. The labour market is being severely hit and unemployment rates are increasing thus negatively affecting the EU’s potential growth. In this scenario, the aim is for Europe to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy. Inclusive means, among others, raising Europe’s employment rates and helping people with fewer opportunities of all ages manage change through investment in skills and training. Unemployment is particularly high among women and young people and this situation is exacerbated among migrant women and women at risk of social exclusion. In addition, these groups are more vulnerable because of issues related to work-life balance, limited availability for training and access to resources. The general objective of WhomeN Project is to offer new opportunities and competences to adult women at risk of social exclusion (immigrants, long-term unemployed women, young women with low level of education, single mothers, unemployed women, over-45,…) for improving their qualifications and thus their levels of employability and integration into the society, mainly through innovative methodologies of recognition of skills and competences that include transversal and soft skills. The project focuses on the development of an effective protocol for the evaluation of skills and competences based on EU guidelines for validation and recognition, ECVET and EQAVET tools. This will allow a further professionalization of occupations commonly carried out by women at risk of social exclusion ( as for example Personal House-hold Service, hotels, restaurants and caterings (HORECA)and others), and a better integration of these women that develop these jobs without official professional qualification but with a lot of experience and competences. These skills and competence recognition process have the objectives: - Define of specific training itinerary according to each prospective target group and each occupation. - Develop a protocol for the evaluation and recognition of skills and competences within the most common job roles developed by women at risk of social exclusion (based on EU guidelines for validation and recognition, ECVET and EQAVET) that includes tools for monitoring and quality assurance. -Design curricula and pedagogic material for employment advisers/ officers on how to implement the protocol that includes special attention to soft skills and guidelines to introduce standards to respect for cultural diversity and gender equality. -Produce two courses for employment officers/ trainers on how to implement the protocol in different contexts of competences background and with different target groups. -Disseminate the protocol in each partner country trough guidelines and other methodological tools. -Implement training courses in each territory aimed to develop professional competences and soft skills for women according to specific training itineraries established by each partner. -Disseminate results, protocol and tools created at a transnational level. WhomeN project, implemented through a partnership that includes 9 organizations from 7 countries, will allow reaching the following impacts: * To give a European dimension to the process of recognition of professional competences and personal competences trough soft skills that will allow these women with fewer opportunities to improve their socio-occupational integration process. * Enhancing of intercultural and cross-sector cooperation among organizations involved in the partnership. * Capacity-building among professionals (staff) from organizations in the exchange and transfer of know-how, transversal skills increase, tutoring and counseling, among other issues. * Establishment of networks at EU level of organizations involved in training, education, cooperation, innovation and/or professional competences and soft skills recognition, among other topics. *Design of an effective and usefulness tool aimed to the self-evaluation of personal competences and connecting with EU guidelines EQAVET and ECVET and that includes formal competences recognition process. * Promote employment for women with fewer opportunities through the design of personalized itineraries to recognize professional and personal skills. * Disseminating project outputs at a large scale. WhomeN project will contribute to the Europe 2020 Strategy and targets regarding the role of education and training in recognition of competences, empowering people and ensuring that citizens, in particular, adults who have low levels of education, the unemployed, migrants, and those who have left school early, can access lifelong learning and up-skilling throughout their lives.