Young Entrepreneurs in Time of Crisis

The idea of the YETC project arose from the dynamic events and processes that had started with the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the beginning of 2020, Europe has faced a global socio-economic and cult...

YETC's general objective was to facilitate youth activism and entrepreneurial mindset through networking, sharing best practices and developing innovative NFIL tools. The activities helped young people overcome the shared feelings of uncertainty caused by the unstable socioeconomic situation in Europe. The project encouraged them to contribute to the resilience process of Europe through their motivation, unique strengths and knowledge that could be foundations for new entrepreneurial initiatives. The project promoted an inclusive society, embracing youth creativity and innovation as an intrinsic feature of the EU. The project set three specific objectives: - To contribute to building the capacity of youth workers (organisations) through joint research activities, training and cooperation - To promote young entrepreneurs in partner countries through collecting best practices, producing a guide and video collection and organising a networking event - To create new NFIL tools and modules promoting entrepreneurship and youth activism tailored to the needs of young people in the partnering countries.

To achieve the general and specific objectives, the partners conducted the following activities during the project implementation: - held a youth workers seminar for cooperation to set objectives based on young people’s needs across the partner countries (part of the kick-off meeting in Athens in February 2022). - surveyed young people’s attitudes toward starting a business in times of crisis and identified fields for improvement (skills, knowledge, attitudes). The partners prepared and disseminated a questionnaire to young people and collected 328 eligible responses (April-June 2022). - created countries’ snapshots and an action plan for promoting entrepreneurial skills and learning. The partners carried out desk research, exploring the current state of youth entrepreneurship, government and private support and entrepreneurial education in partner countries. - researched best practices of young entrepreneurs in different sectors (social, cultural, environmental, digital) who started their initiatives after the beginning of 2020. The partners designed a template for collecting best practices. They identified 54 best practices from the partner countries and beyond. They created a database of best practices and recorded 10 video interviews with entrepreneurs. - produced an inspirational online guide with successful stories. The partners summarised the best practices and prepared an inspirational guide in all partner languages and English. - held a networking event online. Partners organised an online networking event - Growing Entrepreneurial Mindset - to which they invited young entrepreneurs and young people. 56 participants attended the event on 26 October 2022. - produced an online course and training toolkit and tested them at local workshops with young people (1 per country) on launching a business initiative. Based on the previous activities, the consortium developed an online course - Entrepreneurship for Youth - consisting of 5 modules (general, social, cultural, green and digital entrepreneurship). The course is available on the HOP platform and the project website. The partners produced 30 non-formal educational tools for the training toolkit, and they tested them during the local 2-day training sessions with young people between April and June 2023. The partners translated the online course and training toolkit into all partner languages (Bulgarian, Greek, Romanian, Italian, Polish and Macedonian). - conducted training of trainers for youth workers (3 per partner, 3 days) on stimulating entrepreneurial mindset – Bootcamp for entrepreneurial skills - 18 youth workers from the partner countries participated in the training on 19-21 April 2023. They learned to use the various non-formal educational tools as part of the training toolkit. - held six multiplier events - in September 2023, the partners organised six Youth Entrepreneurship Conferences (one per country) to present the project results and discuss the project topics with stakeholders. The partners invited youth entrepreneurs as keynote speakers to share their experiences, challenges and lessons learned.

The project produced the following tangible results: - Action Plan for Promoting Entrepreneurial Skills and Learning, including country snapshots, desk research and results from a survey of young people's attitudes towards starting new entrepreneurial initiatives. The Action plan is a document of 67 pages in English and translated into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Polish and Romanian. It is available on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/country-snapshots-and-action-plan-on-youth-entrepreneurship/ - Database of 54 best practices of young entrepreneurs from partner countries and beyond, covering the four sectors - social, cultural, green and digital. The database is available in English on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/best-practices/ - A video collection of 10 interviews with young entrepreneurs from the partner countries. The interviews have been published on YouTube and made available on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/best-practices-videos/ - Inspirational guide Youth Entrepreneurship Endeavours, prepared in English (76 pages) and translated into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Polish and Romanian. It is available on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/inspirational-guide/ - Training Toolkit on Entrepreneurship, consisting of 30 non-formal training tools aimed at youth workers and youth NGOs. The toolkit has been prepared in English (55 pages) and translated into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Polish and Romanian. It is available on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/training-toolkit/ - Online course Entrepreneurship for Youth, prepared in 5 modules and published on the HOP platform (https://hop.salto-youth.net/courses/EntrepreneurshipYouth). The documentation of the online course has been translated into Bulgarian, Macedonian, Greek, Italian, Polish and Romanian. It is available on the project website: https://www.yetcproject.eu/online-course-and-training-toolkit/ - Online Networking Event - Growing Entrepreneurial Mindset - implemented on 26 October 2022 - Training of trainers for youth workers (18 youth workers) on stimulating entrepreneurial mindset – Bootcamp for entrepreneurial skills implemented on 19-21 April 2023. - Six local training sessions in the partner countries with 20 participants each in the period April-June 2023 - Six Youth Entrepreneurship Conferences for promoting project results, implemented in September 2023. The project produced the following intangible results: - increase the motivation of young people to think creatively and start new entrepreneurial initiatives, which can contribute to Europe’s recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic - identify and seize opportunities to create value for young people by exploring social, cultural, digital and green entrepreneurial ideas - improve young people’s communication, critical thinking and problem-solving skills and entrepreneurship competences - encourage young people to exchange their experiences and ideas and to learn from one another - establish new connections and contributors to create opportunities to create value - improve the organisational management of youth organisations, especially regarding entrepreneurial learning and social entrepreneurship