JOVESOLIDES launches YounGO to foster social entrepreneurship among European youth
The new approaches of European policies suggest focusing the efforts towards the young population in terms of generation of opportunities and promotion of spaces of social participation, with a view of more active citizens and social integration of younger population.
The current socioeconomic reality makes the access to the labor market more complex, especially among young people, conditioning their personal and social development and the correct transition from education to the labor market.
From this perspective, and considering the great changes and emerging needs in area of employability, education and training, JOVESOLIDES launches a project to foster young social entrepreneurship and social innovation in seven European countries involving 140 young people and seven social entities.
YounGO is a proposal that seeks to implement innovative work methodologies to benefit European youth generating strategies, between social entities, universities and organizations to improve the access to quality employment, in order to develop new opportunities for youth in area of employability.
This project, which involves seven partners from various European countries, enhances social entrepreneurship as a strategy and method to be applied to work with young people, encouraging their creativity and generating opportunities.
YounGO counts with funding of the European Union Erasmus+ program, within the line of capacity building. The project has started this February and will have a duration of 17 months. The actions will be developed by a partnership made up of seven entities: led by JOVESOLIDES, and with the participation of several partners: Eurocultura, from Italy; The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development in Greece; Stuba (Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava) from Slovakia; Social Innovation Fund in Lithuania; National Managment School from Bulgaria and ACTA from Romania.
A selection of entities that specifically work with youth, and a selection of countries that, like Spain, face a similar situation regarding youth unemployment. One of the objectives set by the European Union in its 2020 strategy is the generation of higher levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion, facilitating our youth the employability. YounGO is focused on this premise, the creation of opportunities for young people within the European framework.
The keys to this transnational action that is now beginning are:
• Strengthening capacities of youth workers, providing tools that can contribute to the fostering of young social entrepreneurship. In order to do this, a planning and strategy meeting will take place the next April. It is there, where the methodology designed and tested by JOVESOLIDES, Creative Solution to Social Problems (CSSP) will be shared.
• Fostering young social entrepreneurship in the 7 countries involved in this initiative, through the development of social entrepreneurship laboratories in each country, involving young people in finding creative solutions to social problems of their environment.
• Fostering social innovation through participatory social spaces, through the Social Innovation Forum which will be the occasion to share the experiences of each country, apart from sharing other initiatives under the social young entrepreneurship and innovation.
This project will create a methodological guide in order to facilitate spreading the methodology of social entrepreneurship in all participating countries. Apart from that, a study on best practices in this area will also be published at European level. With these two tools we want to increase the project’s impact, facilitating its replicability and enhancing other entities to also resort to Social Entrepreneurship as youth empowerment strategy.
JOVESOLIDES, as the leading entity, has a long track record in fostering empowerment and young leadership using innovative methodologies through social entrepreneurship. A recent experience has been the RED CREACTIVA - CREATIVE NETWORK, through which young people statewide were trained in social entrepreneurship, as well as entities working in the area of youth. Moreover, a directory of companies that have included social commitment with their environment in their DNA has been created.
The initiative that has just started will develop its first flagship activity in the month of May in Valencia. The city will also host a Forum on Social Entrepreneurship that will publicize social entrepreneurship and social innovation as a strategy of change and construction opportunities.
If you want to keep up with the developments of this project you can follow the hashtag:#YounGoEU
