Youth Power

Name of the project: Young Women Entrepreneurs

Duration of project: 02.01.2017. – 30.11.2017.

Motivation of partners in this project is to “equip” young women with set of skills needed to work on personal development in fields of learning, creating self-employment opportunities and sharing valuable skills among peers.

Despite today’s youth being the most educated generation ever, young people are more likely to be working on short-term and informal contracts, with low pay, and with little or no social protection. In the EU, youth represent 38,5% of the total unemployed population, while 4,6 million people aged between 15 and 24 do not have a job; sadly, the situation is even worse in South East Europe.

According to the UN report on youth unemployment, unemployment, underemployment and discouragement can have a long term negative impacts for young people and possibility compromise their future work prospects. Unemployment (particularly long-term unemployment) is one of the causes of social exclusion. For many young people unemployment implies lack of opportunities, lack of future perspectives, limited personal development, low self-esteem, the impossibility of becoming autonomous, etc.

Partners aim to work with participants on discussing this issue influence on youth in countries involved – EU level and SEE. One of the solutions would be creating self-employment, as there are not enough job opportunities for youth nowadays. Europe’s economic growth and jobs depend on its ability to support the growth of enterprises. Entrepreneurship creates new companies, opens up new markets, and nurtures new skills. The most important sources of employment in the EU are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The Commission’s objective is to encourage people to become entrepreneurs and also make it easier for them to set up and grow their businesses.

Even though there are more women than men in Europe, female entrepreneurs represent only a third of the self-employed in the EU (and even less in the SEE countries). There are some additional factors (such as reconciling business and family) that make entrepreneurship a less attractive option for them than for men. When establishing and running a business, women face challenges such as: access to finance; access to information; training; access to networks for business purposes; reconciling business and family concerns.

The European Commission is working with EU countries to overcome these and encourage more women to start their own companies. European Commission promotes and supports female entrepreneurship through the Small Business Act and the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan and there have been several support tools created in this regard.

Thisproject fits within the objectives of the participating organisations and of the above mentioned European policies. We will focus on capacity building of partner organisations and their youth workers for development of entrepreneurship empowerment centres with special programmes of capacity building of young women for entrepreneurship will be developed.

The project consists of three phases: preparation phase, implementation phase and evaluation phase.

The core activities (of the implementation phase and the project in general) are:

1 Training course (Activity 1): „Young Women Entrepreneurship Empowerment Centres“

Dates and place of the TC: 14^th– 22^ndMarch 2017, in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Target group and the overall aim of the TC: This training course targets youth workers who will further take action and develop local empowerment centres for empowering young women and raising their entrepreneurship and employability skills.

Daily activities of the training course will be organised in a way that there will be 4 sessions of 90 minutes each. Before dinner, there will be 30 minutes long daily evaluation and reflection round held. After the dinner there will be less structured, optional programme offered with possibility for participants to offer additional sessions/programme themselves to either lead themselves, or with other participants and trainers. Trainers will be meeting in the evenings to discuss the day and prepare next working days respecting possible participants’ suggestions and needs.

Methodology: the training course is based on the pedagogical understanding of the Council of Europe and the European Commission Partnership Programme and our own experience and expertise in youth employment and entrepreneurship. As the training materials we will use SALTO booklets, T-kits, Compass, and different EU policy/programmes information. The course will follow the non-formal education (NFE) approach, principles and methods and will be based on participants’ experience and exchange. A combination of different creative, participatory and interactive methods will be used and designed upon the profile of participants, some of them being: theoretical themes and lectures; individual/group activities; group games and exercises, simulations and role plays; work on examples in a small group; discussions; etc. The learning of new skills, the acquisition of knowledge and the exchange and challenge of each other’s attitude and experience are very important for this project. The courses’ programme and contents are organised to allow for the maximum participation of the group using active and participatory methods.

2) Homework – Establishing young women entrepreneurship empowerment centres and activitiesthat will be initiated during the training course and implemented in the several months after the training course. The exact form of the empowerment centres is not yet known, as it will be inspired, envisioned and developed by the participants themselves, with the assistance and mentorship of the trainers and support from the coordinators and leaders of their sending organisations. What is known about the empowerment centres is that in every partner organisation and community the activities of empowerment centre will be run, which implies that there will be 9 empowerment centres for young women entrepreneurship developed as a part of this project. Activities of empowerment centres will be based on non-formal education approach, principles and methods and will have quality entrepreneurial learning aspect of those.

In order to develop efficient empowerment centres and activities for young women entrepreneurship, participants from the training course will hold several multiplication meetings/workshops for other youth workers, coordinators and volunteers in their sending organisation. These meetings/workshops will be based on non-formal education principles.

Kako bi se razvili učinkoviti centri za osnaživanje i aktivnosti za poduzetništvo mladih žena, sudionici iz tečaja obuke održat će nekoliko multiplikacijskih sastanaka / radionica za druge radnike za mlade, koordinatore i volontere u organizaciji koja ih šalje. Ti se sastanci / radionice temelje na načelima neformalnog obrazovanja.

3) Evaluation meeting (Activity 2): „Impact of entrepreneurial learning of young women in our empowerment centres“

Dates and place of the Evaluation meeting: 27^thSeptember – 3^rdOctober 2017, in Zadar, Croatia

Target group and the overall aim of the Evaluation meeting: The evaluation meeting course is developed for most of the participants from the first training course and one (or two, in some cases) staff member from organisations partners in the project. The aim is to evaluate longer term impact and quality of the first training course and of the homework (establishment of young women entrepreneurship empowerment centres and activities) that has been started at the first training course and developed by our participants in the period between the two activities of the project. Also, during the evaluation meeting participants/partners will recommend future steps among our partners regarding the topic of young women entrepreneurship and empowerment centres.

In order to have efficient evaluation meeting, partners and participants will implement different multiplication workshop and meetings in the period between the activity 1 and the activity 2 of the project. Also, contact persons will run a small survey among other youth workers, employees and volunteers in the organisation on what impact the participation of some of them on the training course 1, the multiplication meetings/workshops and young women entrepreneurship empowerment centre activities has left on the overall organisation and its programmes.

Methodology: the evaluation meeting will also follow the non-formal education (NFE) approach, principles and methods and will be based on participants’ experience and exchange.

This project is financed by European Union, as part of Erasmus+ program.