<< Objectives >>CRAFTS+ will:connect ceramics by educating and sharing knowledge for improving practice create customized training and capacity-building materials for adult learners create an ICT HUB to enhance individual practitioners to generate practice via transition from informal to formal micro-entrepreneurshipprovide policy recommendations for local and regional authorities and stakeholders for the status of the learning environment in the crafts and educational sector achieve capacity building and<< Implementation >>The project CRAFTS+ aims to open new paths of knowledge by reproducing the vitality and the creativity that accompanies crafts and its associated knowledge, skills and processes, acknowledging the necessity to have adequate documentation. CRAFTS+ will implement the following activities: 1. Needs analysis 2. Craft + Toolbox3. Craft + Training - Train the Trainers4. ICT platform for online learning and networking5. Dissemination and exploitation activities<< Results >>CRAFTS+ will develop and deliver training and practical entrepreneurship education for adults, crafts entrepreneurs or even crafts businesses and anyone interested in the sector. For this reason, a complete set of education material destined to amateur or professional artisans, including an e-learning platform, a training and self-training toolset, as well as curricula for craft trainers and trainees will be produced. CRAFTS+ will increase the quality in the work and practices of the target grou

There is around 25 million people were unemployed throughout the European Union. The youth unemployment rate (for 15-24 year olds) is worst than the EU average. Apprenticeships cannot solve the problems of youth unemployment, but they can bridge the gap between school and the labour market. There are various activities that can be undertaken in order to bridge the gap such as: ensuring that VET programmes correspond to the needs of the labour market; contributions to the development of professional qualifications; advising on the content of training, both in training institutions and at the workplace; improving terms and conditions for apprentices, particularly possible wages; providing guidance for apprentices via chambers representatives; improved system for monitoring the quality of work-based training; deciding on the funding arrangements for work-based training by means of bilateral training funds. Apprenticeships have traditionally been designed to serve intermediate technical occupations. However, over the last 50 years there has been a gradual ‘hollowing out’ of mid-skilled jobs, with more jobs created either in high-skilled professional occupations (such as management consulting), or low-skilled service sector occupations (such as retail and hotels). Many people work in low-wage sectors, accounting for big portion of all employment. Many of these sectors do not have the same need or commitment to train their workforce.Upon the privatization of the large companies from the past the SEE region exhibits a growing trend of establishing micro and SMEs. This has marked rise of new job market flexible working large growth in self-employment at the lower end of the labour market. More and more people shift away from ‘career jobs’ with large employers which lend themselves well to the sort of employer-led. These new processes have made the transition from school to work that much more complicated. Due to this, the apprenticeship schemes/systems need to reflect the reality and become more attractive for students to engage in them. According to the European Commission various forms of apprenticeship practices have shown that countries with strong, attractive VET systems and especially those with well-established apprenticeship systems and strong work-based learning tend to perform better in terms of facilitating the transition from school to work and keeping youth unemployment down. Improving the supply and quality of apprenticeships is therefore an important part of the youth employment strategy.The consortium will contribute towards the Agenda 2020 and EU's targets: early school-leaving rate below 10% & more young people in higher education or equivalent VET education (at least 40%), as well as to have at least 20 million fewer people in or at risk of poverty and social exclusion by 2020. To the point, the project is in line with the agenda's concrete actions aiming at, among other things, improving flexibility and security in the labour market, equipping people with the right skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow and improving the conditions for job creation.Target group: The project is foreseen to be implemented in close communication and coordination with involvement of various social partners and appropriate intermediary bodies such as chambers of commerce, association of employers, industry and crafts, professional organizations, sectoral organizations with established apprenticeship systems, public bodies (national employment agency, regional development centers etc.). However, as final beneficiaries and target groups the consortium sees the student support centers at universities, VET schools and the students (secondary and tertiary level) themselves. Common problems for hiring apprenticeships are the lack of training infrastructure and personnel to supervise apprentices, as well as insufficient expertise and capacity to manage complex rules, employment law and administrative requirements.The overall objective is to facilitate the uptake of high quality jobs, apprenticeships and traineeships positions in SEE countriesSO 1: To facilitate exchanges of good practices, the development of networks and discussion platforms between education providers and the private sector to boost employability of learners.SO 2: Support transnational cooperation and public-private partnerships to adapt the existing education provision in order to meet the emerging needs of employers and reflects new trends and developments in the labour market related to youth needs.SO3: Enable and encourage, through utilization of ICT tools and platforms, job seekers and businesses, particularly SMEs in order to find and offer apprenticeships and jobs in various industry.SO4: Enhance policy development related to apprenticeship through improving apprenticeships' standards and policies based on transnational cooperation and EU best practice.

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.

The project understands that the traditional universities have structures which are hard to change/adapt to new requirements of industry. In addition, industry needs are growing faster and changing rapidly and in order to keep up, the businesses need highly qualified staff which increases their cost of operations. Parallel to this, VET schools, for long period of time, have been seen as supplementary education to higher education.The project will offer educational model which can be utilized by VET schools, especially at tertiary level, in order to be able to offer high quality of services to various types of organizations which operate in national and international context. The model is structured to satisfy various target groups whose location is dispersed geographically and physical attendance is not always possible, especially not for long term periods. In addition, the project utilizes blended learning which provides the most optimal learning experience for the participants. The target group is comprised of VET learners, especially on tertiary level, youth workers, not-graduated university student between 30-34 of age, young entrepreneurs and professionals.The expected impact of the project is to increase and improve the provision of educational/work modules management mechanisms which can be utilized in the region and internationally, human and labour capabilities to be enhanced, increase the competitiveness of regional and EU educated workforce and utilize combined education by utilization of ICT tools.The project will engage in activities such as assessing the educational outputs of universities and VET schools as well as assessment of the real labour needs of the industry. This output will be the foundation for development of educational curriculum for soft skills development. A short learning-trainning activity will enable testing the model of education-in-action as well as produce ORE materials which can be later utilized via ICT platform. The educational model will be based on real case scenarios. In addition, the learners will be able to choose two different streams: entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial. All learners, as part of the holistic approach to learning, will be able to engage in apprenticeship and job shadowing activities. The goal of the project is to bridge the gap between the qualitative outputs of educational provisions and industry needs by offering innovative approach in learning and praxis.The specific objectives (SO) of the project are:SO1: To develop and deliver innovative educational method based on education-in-action of soft skills in order to enhance the quality of education offered in VET schools;SO2: To increase the cooperation between educational institutions and industry for improvement of educational outputs and increasing the employability rate of tertiary VET learners, youth workers, and young entrepreneurs and professionals.SO3: To enhance the VET system by improving utilization ICT tools for provision of combined learning and comprehensive data provision for policy and decision makers. The model allows adaptive approach to gaining knowledge based on the learning needs of the individuals. The project is designed with an inbuilt sustainability due to the fact that it is learner centered model and its provision envelops wider and diverse target group. The model provisions have cross-sectoral application and wide range of implementation. This means that VET schools can utilize the model for adding value to their programmes; companies can use it for in-house training; wide range of professionals and individuals can, at their own schedule, keep their know-how up to date. The structure of the modules ensures complete, systematic and measurable learning trajectory for the learners.