Project Constellation is 20 months strategic partnership for youth in field of innovation. It involves 5 partner organizations from 3 European countries - Latvia, Slovenia and Croatia. The context of the Project Constellation is high number of young people who experience NEET situation in EU member countries. In 2016, more than 6,3 million young people (aged 15-24 years) were NEETs in the EU. In 2011 the direct economic loss across the EU to the high proportion of NEETs was estimated at 153 billion eur or 1,2% of EU's gross domestic product. After the crise of Covid 19 the number of young people in NEET situation could increase even more significatly. The main objective of Erasmus+ project Constellation is to build capacity of youth workers and formal educators working with youth in rural areas in high potential of expierencing NEET situation. The main objective includes: - raising awareness of marginalized youth, especially, youngsters in NEET situation among project target groups; - setting a cross-sectorial cooperation between non-formal and formal education; - carring out a research on patterns among youth who experience NEET situation; - creating n Educational Resource Kit (including methodology and tools) how prevent youngsters in high risk of experiencing NEET situation. As the result of the Project Constellation there are created innovative tools: research among young people who experience NEET situation and Educational Resource Kit for youth workers and educators. The Project Constellation directly involved around 600 people instead of 275 people (participants with fewer opportunities 155) and indirectly around 700 stakeholders in Europe and partner countries. It also includes reaching associated partners and they networks.In reality we have directly involve around 600 people and indirectly more than 5000 people and stakeholders. And project visibility online have reached more than 20000 people. The main target groups of the Project Constellation are potential NEET youngsters, youth workers and educators and involved stakeholders. The long term benefit of the Project Constellation are increased quality of youth work and educators by equiping them with innovative tools how to prevent youngsters becomming NEET. In result the project Constellation increases opportunities to be socially included into the society and decreases number of NEET youngsters as well increases the well being of each partner community and whole EU.

"In the last ten years unemployment has increased considerably in Europe. Young people are particularly affected. They face even more difficult conditions to enter the labor market. Did you know that the youth unemployment rate is twice the average rate!The Europe 2020 Strategy took up the issue and invested in the subject of entrepreneurship: “To bring Europe back to growth and higher levels of employment, Europe needs more entrepreneurs”.But making young people want to be an entrepreneur is not easy: 40% of young people indicate an interest in entrepreneurship, but only 4% of them actually try it. How can we try to reduce this gap?Numerous measures for youth entrepreneurship have been put in place in recent years: training in project management, financial support, specific incubators, etc. But much remains to be done to improve the social representations of entrepreneurship and success in European culture. According to the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, “There is a widespread culture that does not recognize or sufficiently reward entrepreneurial efforts and does not celebrate successful entrepreneurs as role models that create jobs and income. To make entrepreneurship the engine of growth in our economy, Europe needs a profound cultural change “. How to react ?
– by deconstructing social representations of entrepreneurship and success,
– by raising awareness and promoting the informal skills of young people in entrepreneurship,
– by creating the confidence of young women in the entrepreneurial adventure
,– by promoting the integration of entrepreneurship awareness and training modules into initial training,
– by learning from European cultural differences on the subject in order to shake up our stereotypes about youth entrepreneurship.This is why we have built a strategic cooperation partnership for innovation within the Erasmus + Youth and Sport program, funded with support from the European Commission. Five organizations from France, Ireland, Greece and Slovenia have looked into the subject to design the Toolbox that we present to you on the project’s website : stopentrepreneurialcliches.comFor who?Ultimate target group: – Young qualified men and women. Educational target group:– Orientation advisors, teachers, directors of organisations of initial trainings,– Counsellors of organisations helping young job seekers.What tools have we designed to improve the situation?Firstly, we conduct a qualitative study to define what are the motivating factors and stereotypes preventing young people from embarking on entrepreneurship. - IO1: We conducted qualitative interviews in France, Greece, Ireland and Slovenia with entrepreneurs who have tried the adventure of young entrepreneurship. From this work, we learned 10 lessons shared in the report ""Europe needs more entrepreneurs, and more young entrepreneurs"". Secondly on the basis of IO1 work, we design a free Toolbox to educate young people about entrepreneurship. These tools can be used by orientation advisors, teachers, counsellors to raise awareness on entrepreneurship potential for youth. - IO2: The Video “10 reasons why young people shouldn’t set up their own company” to dismantle one by one the clichés linked to youth entrepreneurship, giving a voice to those who have started young. - IO3: The Serious Game “Entrepreneurial skills in daily activities” by sharing the life of Lea, Medhi and Max. The ordinary activities of these three young students highlight the informal skills useful in an entrepreneurial adventure. - IO4: The Turnkey Workshop “Entrepreneurship why not me?” to educate young women about entrepreneurship. Because young women are fewer than young men to choose entrepreneurship, it is crucial to make young women aware of the possibilities available to them by trying this adventure. The ""Entrepreneurship, why not me?” is addressed particularly to them, by identifying with female role-models. - IO5: The Educational Ressource Kit for initial training organizations that includes: - A video teaser presenting the project's Toolbox demonstrating the importance of raising young people's awareness of entrepreneurship in order to encourage initial training organisations to integrate the subject into their training courses and to inform them that free tools are available to them. - An educational kit to put the tools in the toolbox into practice - A portfolio of European Good Practices to go furtherTeachers, guidance counselors, integration counselors… here you will find a free Toolbox to raise awareness of entrepreneurship among young people :stopentrepreneurialcliches.com"

"Nowadays unemployment is one of the biggest and most challenging issues European community is facing. According to World Bank Group information, the youth unemployment rate is double (or even more than double in some countries) than the general unemployment in EU-28. As one of the solutions, the partner institutions see empowering women in entrepreneurship as one of the possible and most effective ways to solve the problem, since in the strategic perspective, it can increase the general rate of employment, create new working places, increase the level of social inclusion of women and their participation in the life of local communities, and improve general economic situation. In order to achieve this, there were selected partner organizations that have similar objectives and are focused on problems of unemployment and social inclusion of women in the life of society. ""The Gender of Entrepreneurship - Empowering Women for A Better Future"" was a multiple-action project coordinated by an NGO Creative Minds (Yerevan, Armenia). The project included 8 partner organizations from the Programme and Eastern Partnership Countries, such as Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, and Czech Republic. The project consisted of several stages: preparation, training course, local activities, seminar, follow-up activities and dissemination activities.The training course took place in Yerevan, Armenia in January, 2018. During this activity, representatives of partner organizations have shared the current issues connected to unemployment in their countries and local communities they are working with, and learnt about creative and innovative entrepreneurship as a possible way to improve the situation on a labour market with a specific focus on a gender gap in self-employment caused by lack of opportunities for women, social environment and cultural perspective. After the training course, participants together with partner institutions organized local activities in their communities. After that, the 7-day seminar took place in Ptuj, Slovenia in May, 2019. As the follow-up activity, there was organised an one-day event in Yerevan. During this event there was made presentation of the project results, materials created by participants, achievements, as well as the Handbook for Trainers and Youth Workers.Strategically, there will be one common impact and big change that will start on a local level and keep growing. Since we expect the participants of the project to empower and inspire women for the entrepreneurial initiatives, we expect that step by step the number of female entrepreneurs will increase that will also influence the employment statistics, situation on a labour market and general economic situation in Europe and in the region, particularly."

Erasmus+ project Interception is about strengthening social inclusion through inclusive entrepreneurship. Social excluded youth is under-represented or disadvantaged in entrepreneurship. Increasing entrepreneurship among them, as well as improving the quality of their business start-ups, represents an opportunity to increase their social inclusion. Social excluded youth typically face greater barriers to business creation than the mainstream population. Challenges include a lack of entrepreneurship skills, difficulty in accessing finance for business start-up, difficulties navigating the regulatory framework, a fear of failure and a lack of confidence. The objective of inclusive entrepreneurship is to ensure that all young people have an opportunity to start up and operate in business or self-employment, regardless of their personal characteristics and background.Project Interception encourages inclusive entrepreneurship to give young people an opportunity to be successful in business creation and self-employment. Project wants to give to social excluded youth opportunity that they would believe that also their visions and ideas can be successful and also that those youngsters at least try to be entrepreneur if they have a drive, energy and idea that could be successful. Name of the project Interception is chosen because by the Cambridge dictionary the meaning is “the action of stopping and catching something or someone before that thing or person is able to reach a particular place”. With this project we want to stop youth to reach a point of social exclusion. At the same time the word “Interception” contains two words “Inception” and “ter”. The basis of this project was the project Inception. Meaning of the word “ter“ means “three”. Three symbolically stands for 3 EU countries and 3 non-EU countries in the project as well as connection 3 continents together – Europe, Asia and Australia.

“Building Business Skills for IT Entrepreneurship” is the multiple activity project that was implemented from July, 2017 until March, 2018 through cooperation of 10 partner organisations from Programme and Eastern Partnership countries - Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Portugal, Slovenia, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. “Creative Minds” (Armenia) was the applicant and coordinating organisation for the project. The project consisted of several stages, such as preparation, mobility activity (training course), research, local activities (capacity building), conference, evaluation and follow-up. The main aims of the project was to provide practical solutions to social challenges in the region, raise the capacities of participating organisations, promote social entrepreneurship, empower young people, improve their business skills, establish international cooperation, and develop IT solutions as one of the keys to development on local and regional levels. The objectives of the project are: - To educate youth workers from the participating organisations about tools and methods in youth work related to empowering young people and promoting entrepreneurship;- To share good practices from the participating countries and organisations;- To promote IT entrepreneurship among young people in the participating countries;- To raise awareness among young people and in local communities about the economic potential of the region;- To decrease the level of youth unemployment in participating countries through developing start-ups by young people;- To research the needs of young people in local communities regarding entrepreneurial education;- To educate young people from local communities and develop their business skills for IT entrepreneurship through workshops and conferences organised by participating organisations;- To establish partner relationships and networking between participating organisations; - To raise the capacities of participating organisations in the field of non-formal education.- To promote Erasmus+ Programme and its opportunities for young people.