Through an innovative approach of social entrepreneurship, the project responses to two of the main challenges of Europe: employment and social inclusion.Since 2008, the most severe economic crisis provoked in Europe over 25 million unemployed. Europe needs to update not only its social model but also its business model in order to respond to 21st century challenges. Entrepreneurship is one of the four common EU objectives of Strategic framework – Education & Training 2020 and a powerful driver of economic growth and job creation (Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe) and an instrument to improve employability levels (Annual Growth Survey 2013). Social economy could be a way to go further because it combines job creation and economic sustainability with a care for equity, diversity, participation and environmental goals.In Europe, approximately two million Social and Solidarity Economy organizations represent about 10 per cent of all companies and employ over 11 million people, the equivalent of 6 per cent of the working population of the European Union (“Maximizing Dignity Through Social and Solidarity Economy”, SSEDAS, 2015). In Spain, there are over 200.000 social economy organizations (‘The Social Economy in the European Union’, Ciriec International, 2012), in Poland – almost 1.000, whereas in Cyprus and Romania or is a newer concept.The “ALTERNATIVA – the power of community through social entrepreneurship” project is aiming to enable adults to acquire and develop skills and competencies needed for their employability, to turn their business ideas into concrete actions while also caring for the environmental sustainability and their compromise with the community. The idea is to empower adults through the exchange of experiences, in order to gain an opportunity to learn about different ways of self-employment, working for a social business and various options of innovative social entrepreneurship. The ALTERNATIVA project is focused on people who have to face the main challenges of the today economic world such as unemployment, economic instability, seniors 50+, women, adults from disadvantaged areas or with special needs. Four partners from four European countries (Poland, Spain, Cyprus, Romania) will bring relevant and complementary skills and human resources to work for fostering a common understanding of the social entrepreneurship and popularizing this idea in their communities. A very important goal of the project is also to improve the competences of trainers from partner organizations in the field of educating people from disadvantaged groups about the social economy. To achieve this objective, there will be organized a joint staff training for them during which the staff will be prepared to conduct training in their countries.As a results of the project will also be prepared a collection of successful social businesses and a manual of good practices will be created in order to present the results of the training workshops and to make a summary of the good practices and ideas shared about social economy initiatives in powerful communities.