"Through an innovative approach to social entrepreneurship, the project addresses two of Europe's main challenges: - youth employment; - social inclusion. In the EU-28 in 2018, there was an average of 3.4 million unemployed aged 15-24 and 22.4 million people in this age group in the labor market, according to the EU Labor Force Survey. This gives a youth unemployment rate of 15.2%. If we estimate the singular statistics of each of the member countries of the consortium of the YSEP project published in September 2019 on Statista, we find that the youth unemployment rate in Greece is 33%, Spain 32.2%, Italy 27.1% and France 19.2% ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/266228/youth-unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/).In view of this situation, we are convinced that the social economy could be a way to go further and solve part of the problem of youth unemployment because it combines job creation and economic sustainability with a concern for equity, diversity and environmental goals. Indeed, we that, the fundamental principle to achieve social cohesion is the recognition of the true power of the youth community. This is why young people need to build on existing social entrepreneurship initiatives in Europe that have proven that existing resources in their local communities can be transformed into innovative social solutions to address challenges of young people's employment.The ""Youth Social Entrepreneurs Potential"" project aims to enable young people to develop their social entrepreneurship skills, critical thinking, civic and social skills and to acquire the skills needed to identify and value the resources of their local cultural and natural heritage in order to transform their business ideas into concrete actions while taking care of environmental sustainability and their compromise with the community.Project-specific objectives: 1. Promote a common understanding of the field of social entrepreneurship by exploring different concepts, formats, and models of social entrepreneurship (social enterprises, cooperatives, social economy vs solidarity economy, etc.).2. Facilitate the transfer of good practices and ideas from social enterprises, strengthen community spirit and increase the motivation of young people to participate in society by creating a set of existing local social entrepreneurship initiatives in each country.3. Helping young people with different situations learn how they can detect local needs and use their cultural and environmental heritage to launch a social initiative, by creating a European training methodology for Youth, modules, and training, learning materials and make them available in the form of open educational resources (OER). 4. Developing young people's entrepreneurial skills to identify resources and business opportunities within the local community and enhance cultural heritage, social and environmental skills, as well as the basic and cross-cutting skills, language and numerical skills.5. Share best practices and ideas on social economy initiatives in communities and create a best practice manual as a result of all project activities. The project's target groups are young people aged 18 to 29 who want to develop their business ideas while generating a positive ""return to society"". Needs were identified based on existing knowledge gained by some of the project partners from previous projects. Some of the challenges and obstacles identified are the lack of capacity to identify opportunities and resources within their local heritage, insufficient confidence in the transition to self-employment, lack of knowledge on how to balance for-profit objectives and ensure a positive impact on society (social, cultural, environmental, etc.), lack of support for social entrepreneurship in the region and lack and/or not up-to-date ICT skills. On the other hand, other young people may have knowledge of forms of self-employment, but do not have the information that it is possible to achieve economic growth while solving community problems. They need to develop their social and intercultural skills, critical thinking and responsibility to be active citizens in the communities where they live."

Our project seeks to assess the impact & influence of EU youth (young people and youth work organizations) in the community building process, the attainment of SDGs and overall the creation of sustainable communities through youth participation & entrepreneurship. Our observations based on our youth work organizations' projects in Europe; most specifically in Estonia, France, Romania and Greece (the 4 countries partners of this project) show that most youth work organizations are actively engaged on various topics that seek to empower their youth in different socio-economic spheres (per the ERASMUS+ Programme guide). According to reports from the United Nations and the World Bank (2005), about 50% of the developing world population are youths estimated at about 1.2 billion of age between 15 and 24 years. Experts argue that it will be impossible to reach the Sustainable Development Goal targets, especially goals on poverty eradication, environmental sustainability and sustainable communities without the involvement of young people (Udensi, et al. 2013). Statistics and studies have proved beyond doubts that programmes such as Erasmus+, have contributed massively to the empowerment and engagement of young people in their local communities as well as their personal development (https://www.researchyouth.eu/facts-and-figures). In our project context, especially in a post-COVID-19 situation where world economies are suffering & governments are focusing on reinvigorating their economies (mostly capitalistic systems) without necessarily looking at important issues such as SDGs, climate change and sustainability, we want to look at how youth workers and EU youth can contribute to youth empowerment, community development & the overall attainment of SDGs.Through our investigations and observations, we posit that young people over the years have been pioneers of change and we think that if well-skilled, EU youth can contribute to the creation of sustainable communities through impact-oriented activities & projects. As young people and youth workers, we feel the need to be catalysts of change who will raise awareness on issues related to sustainability, environmental protection & youth participation. This project is for us an opportunity to innovate new project design tools that put project- impact awareness at their core (community impact, environmental impact, youth participation). To do this we intend to build upon existing good practices in relation to this topic from different socio-cultural settings in Europe.About the project's transnationality, we can mention the opportunity that this project will give us by investigating current happenings in our 4 countries but also on the impact of our projects as linked to SDGs & community development. This is also an opportunity to share innovative practices from our organizations & other young people with hopes of disseminating them adequately and replicating them in different socio-spatial EU spheres.As objectives, our project seeks to:O1. Inform European youth on the impact of their activities over the community. This will be done through the production of an impact report (IO1) on the various forms of youth-led entrepreneurship, projects and their contribution to the attainment of SDGs, community building as well as youth participation.O2. Promote the exchange of good practices within European youth as related to SDGs, environmental protection and community development and trigger a youth-led campaign, using a bottom-up approach where young people & youth workers will be pioneers of change that will design and implement projects & entrepreneurial initiatives that will have a positive impact on their immediate environment & communities. This will be done through the creation of a digital guide (IO2) on sustainable project management in youth work & SDGs' reinforcement at European local levels.O3. Capacitate at least 100 EU youth workers to embed sustainability & environmental protection education into their youth work. Following the ETS competence model, this would train them on how to sensitize their young people on the impact of their activities, projects and enterprises. Also, this will help the youth workers educate the youth on community development as well as SDGs in order for those concepts to be considered by local youth in their various endeavours.O4. Promote a common understanding of the concept of environmental impact as related to youth work & youth-led projects (community projects, entrepreneurial ventures, etc.) As mentioned, the project will produce 2 intellectual outputs the objective that will contribute to the attainment of our objectivesOur target groups are:TG1: youth workers & young people active in community development, project management as well as youth educators from EU TG2: young entrepreneurs & freelancers from EUTG3: young people aged 16-30y old from the EU, mainly youth from rural areas with internet access

<< Objectives >>The overall goals of the project are the following:- Raise awareness of migration and migration journeys towards Europe - Show the human face and real stories of migration to Europeans- Increase solidarity and tolerance towards migrants in Europe - Improve the treatment and conditions of migrants in EuropeWe are planning to achieve these goals by creating a series of migration themed documentaries to show the human face of migration.<< Implementation >>This project consists of the following activities:1) Storytelling workshop and preparation2) Migration research3) Journey to Europe - filmmaking and editing4) Journey to Europe - Film festivals and screeningsThrough the abovementioned activities, a 5-episode series of migration documentaries will be produced and disseminated across the participating countries.<< Results >>As a result of this project, partnering organisations will be more skilled and experienced in improving social cohesion and migrant integration in their communities. Additionally, they have developed their skills in creative storytelling. The respective communities will become more aware of the realities of migration and the hardships migrants have to face. As a long term result, migrants will be better included into European societies and communities.

<< Background >>The demand for digital skills is growing in Europe and citizens need adequate skills to get empowered in a digital economy and society. For example, the rate of the digitally literate workforce residing in Sweden is quite low thanks to the government officials rolling out a nationwide subsidised computer and internet broadband program some thirty years ago. What’s more, the need for young people (incl. refugees/migrants) to show the identification of the skills they acquire through training courses, has created the need to certify the capacity of these people and ease their labour insertion. According to the Digital Skills and Job Coalition of the European Commission, we may lack as many as 756 000 ICT professionals by 2020. Yet youth unemployment is at almost 20%. More than a third of the labour force and, more broadly, around 45% of EU citizens are in effect digitally illiterate. On the other hand, according to UNHCR, 68.5 million people were displaced worldwide in 2017. These include refugees, asylum-seekers, internally displaced persons, returning refugees or stateless people. In the EU, in 2018 2.4 million immigrants entered the EU, meaning their need to integrate & rebuild their lives remains crucial. Through our CODEMI Project, we believe that coding and digital education can play a key role in their integration & long-term active citizenship. Taking this into account, CODEMI will address the digital skills, competitiveness and social inclusion of young migrants and ethnic minorities and empower them to become more resilient and competitive in the job market and the society.<< Objectives >>The project CODEMI has been built & designed with the goal is to expand a network of digital skills schools all around Europe, increasing their impact on the most vulnerable groups in their communities. The project matches two needs and contexts:- The demand for digital skills among the human workforce in the EU labour market and- The employability and inclusion of migrants and ethnic minorities in Europe.The main objective of this project is to actually create an open network of digital education schools & tech professionals, that accelerates the labour market integration of migrants/ethnic minorities and other vulnerable people, by supporting them in acquiring and developing digital skills and key competences. This network also promotes youth work, as a way to accelerate labour integration for displaced migrants and enhance their integration.In detail, the objectives are to:- Strengthen the already existing network of organisations working with digital education and enable the exchange of good-case practices, capitalising on the different perspectives & ideas that each partner can contribute with. The fact that these organisations are already involved in the sector of tech education & employability, will ease the direct implementation of the current project, once approved.- Raise the efficiency of the hiring processes of the educational programs’ graduates, by building cooperation with different actors in the fields such as corporates and investing in practical employability skills.- Amend the educational materials already taught (curriculum, accredited courses, ICDL certification) in order to foster & ensure employability, socio-educational and personal development.- Share the produced materials and practices among the consortium’s partners and other organisations, as well.- Assess the quality, impact and relevance of the non-formal education methods that will be used in the classroom, in the coding programs.The target groups are young migrants and ethnic minorities, non-profit organisations, local communities and for-profit IT Companies<< Implementation >>Transnational meetings- We will organise meetings to ensure the high quality of this project and further develop our partnership with the partnering organisations. There will be three trans-national meetings - kick-off meeting, midterm meeting and final meeting. All meetings will be attended by all partners. Production of results - There will be three main project results produced as a part of CODEMI. These results are the following: 1) Online Coding Programme This project result will be answering to the needs of digital education and coding education amongst young migrants and ethnic minorities. As this is an online course taking into account the specific needs related to self-fulfillment, self-esteem and social obstacles, this coding course will be an innovative tool to empower and equip young migrants and minorities with coding, and digital entrepreneurship skills all over Europe. This course will stay up for at least 5 years after the end of this project.2) Online Mentoring ProgrammeThis course will help young migrants and ethnic minorities to develop their mentoring and coaching skills and become a mentor of the coding programme for other youngsters. Therefore it will be an education course that will develop leadership skills and youth work skills by allowing young people themselves to further empower their communities. The element of innovation lies in the fact that these participants will not be youth workers, but young people themselves who want to contribute more towards the development and empowerment of their peers. This course will stay online for at least 5 years after the end of the project.3) Impact research report on digital education for ethnic minorities and migrantsAs this approach - to empower young migrants and ethnic minorities - is innovative in each of our communities, carrying out an extensive research on local, national and international level is essential in order to accurately assess the impact of these methodologies to our specific target group. As a result of this research being carried out and disseminated widely, more organisations all over Europe can take example of our best practices and implement similar activities in their target groups and communities.Learning, teaching, training activities - We will have two LTTs for two cohorts of young mentors willing to take the leadership role in their communities and become a mentor for other young migrants and ethnic minorities enrolling in our coding course.<< Results >>There will be three main project results produced as a part of CODEMI. These results are the following: 1) Online Coding Programme This project result will be answering to the needs of digital education and coding education amongst young migrants and ethnic minorities. As this is an online course taking into account the specific needs related to self-fulfillment, self-esteem and social obstacles, this coding course will be an innovative tool to empower and equip young migrants and minorities with coding, and digital entrepreneurship skills all over Europe. This course will stay up for at least 5 years after the end of this project.2) Online Mentoring ProgrammeThis course will help young migrants and ethnic minorities to develop their mentoring and coaching skills and become a mentor of the coding programme for other youngsters. Therefore it will be an education course that will develop leadership skills and youth work skills by allowing young people themselves to further empower their communities. The element of innovation lies in the fact that these participants will not be youth workers, but young people themselves who want to contribute more towards the development and empowerment of their peers. This course will stay online for at least 5 years after the end of the project.3) Impact research report on digital education for ethnic minorities and migrantsAs this approach - to empower young migrants and ethnic minorities - is innovative in each of our communities, carrying out an extensive research on local, national and international level is essential in order to accurately assess the impact of these methodologies to our specific target group. As a result of this research being carried out and disseminated widely, more organisations all over Europe can take example of our best practices and implement similar activities in their target groups and communities.

European Creative Business Network (ECBN), an advocacy institution for the European culture and creative industries, denounced the economic impact due the spread of the Corona virus on the cultural and creative industries (CCIs). The entire sector seems to be closed to collapse as all festivals, fairs and concerts have been cancelled, clubs and theatres are closed. Not only organisers are affected, but also agencies and numerous freelancers in performing arts, film and music, basically all who are active in the broadest sense in the event business. Along with the tourism sector, cultural and creative sectors (CCS) are among the most affected by the current crisis, with jobs at risk ranging from 0.8 to 5.5% of employment across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development regions (OECD). The abrupt drop in revenues puts their financial sustainability at risk and has resulted in reduced wage earnings and lay-offs with repercussions for the value chain of their suppliers from creative sectors. In this framework, CREAction 4 EU aims to give its contribution in facing the current COVID-19 situation by fostering the entrepreneurial attitude and by generating new opportunities among young people in order to both face unemployement and support the Creative Industry field. In fact, CREAction 4 EU main goal is to foster young people’s attitude about entrepreneurship in the creativity field and to provide them with knowledge and insights to develop creative outcomes and manage them.By analysing the project name, the primary objective of CREAction 4 EU is to promote youth participation in European civic life through digital means and envisioning the new narrative that takes into account the evolving reality of the European continent, strongly affected by the current pandemic. They address this challenge through innovative ways of building up the capacity of youth to be able to contribute and demonstrate their solidarity in a time of crisis, participating in the decision-making process and taking responsibility for shaping a sustainable common future. The active citizenship and the value of solidarity will be vehiculated through creative channels, both online and offline, and fostered by social entrepreneurship in the creative sectors. The methodology underlying the project involves an in-depth research about good practices in the creative sector and the successful experience of the NMA Methodology (geyc.ro/nma) tailored on the creative industry needs. Young people will be also encouraged to think about their own artistic/cultural social enterprise. These new ideas will be the main focus of the final document of the project, which will be basically a practical Guide on how to build up a creative business.To reach the above-mentioned objectives, the partnership, consisting of 4 organisations from different EU countries (France, Romania, Italy and Hungary), will develop the following IOs:IO1 CREAction 4 EU Handbook for youth workers - the main goal is to provide youth workers with COVID validated, detailed and concise creative business models in different fields of the creativity domains to train young people. Expected result: per each entrepreneurial domain in the creative sector, youth workers will be provided with a work plan with practical information, creative business models to manage and handle workshops via distance learning as well.IO2 CREAction 4 EU Ambassadors Methodology – based on the successful experience of the NMA Methodology tailored on the creative industry needs, youth will be provided with competences in creative entrepreneurship, design thinking methodology, new media skills etc. through a blended learning experience. Expected result: youth will acquire precious information regarding all the process of creative and cultural management.IO3 CREAction 4 EU Learning scenarios for youth - young people will experience gamified simulations concerning social entrepreneurship in the creative sector and the whole process of creative and cultural management by testing the knowledge acquired so far. Expected result: youngsters will learn social/creative entrepreneurship competences thanks to the gamified and edutainment approach.IO4 My CREAction 4 EU Guide - young people with help of youth workers will design the instructions on how to build up and run their own social/creative venture. Expected result: the creation of the Guide and of a networking event by young people with the support of youth workers.The project main target groups include youth aged 13-30 years and youth workers. Also, youth organizations, NGOs, cultural organizations and social-cultural enterprises are targeted by the project.During the project it is expected to raise awareness on the importance of active citizenship through social entrepreneurship, specifically focused on the creative industries. This will impact on the motivation of young people to be engaged in future careers related to creative businesses.