Youth@Work NOT « doing social business as usual »

It's needless to point out the importance and implications of the above fact and quite evident why this is happening! People, political structures, and civic society see it as a response. Maybe "doing business in a different way" can address a lot of current challenges such as employability, community development, participation, inclusion, change of values.

Through youth social entrepreneurship, young people develop personally, professionally, act towards change and participate, make their voice heard, and claim a fairer world.

Erasmus+ has responded to all this, to some extent. There are several training courses, seminars, and other events that are promoting very successfully the idea of Social Economy. On the other hand, there is an impression that there is a method used that is targeting the “usual suspects”. What about the cases of all those young people with a background that is the reason they face social exclusion?

If Social Economy initiatives respond to gaps of needs, who is better to identify them, analyze them, and suggest ways to tackle them than the people that face this situation of exclusion? Who could know better how to deal with refugee issues through a social venture than a refugee? Who could know better how to address the lack of culture in a marginalized community better than the young people living there? And the examples can go on.

But there is also the question of how does youth work adapts, or needs to adapt when working in these contexts and excluded young people?

With this training course, we aim to address this gap and we want to promote a kind of youth work (supporting fewer opportunity groups) approach that is meaningfully inclusive, creating the space for experimentation and tailor-made methodologies and suggests social economy as a mean to personal, social and employment (re)integration.

Aim & Objectives

The aim is to equip volunteers and professionals that work with young people with the necessary competences, tools, and know-how to support social economy initiatives taken by young people that face exclusion.

The objectives include:

• To promote and inspire field workers on changing the paradigm when working on social economy initiatives with young people that face exclusion
• To explore and understand Social Economy and Social Enterprises
• To experience live social enterprises through visiting study visits
• To reflect and become aware of specificities in regards to inclusion within social economy initiatives
• To enhance and increase relevant competences and awareness of tools through a simulation of creating a social business plan

Target group

• Youth workers
• Youth Leaders
• Community Workers
• Trainers and other experiential learning facilitators
• Social Enterprises Incubators/Centres