"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."

The project ‘Less Opportunities + Media Tools = Better Opportunities’ was implemented by ‘Youth Workers Alliance Vranje’, Serbia in cooperation with ‘Youth Council Next Generation’, Republic of Macedonia, ‘Youth4Society’, Albania, ‘Media Terra Nea’, Greece, MladiInfo, Montenegro and ‘Just Do It’, Poland.The 10-months project ‘Less Opportunities + Media Tools = Better Opportunities’ was created with goal to enhance the capacities of youth organizations to effectively use media and social media tools in the process of empowerment of young people with fewer opportunities. The capacity of youth organizations was developed through meeting, two training courses and capacity building activities implemented in participating countries. The first activity of the project - meeting - gave the partners an opportunity to review their roles and update the project plan. Two training courses based on using non-formal learning method and techniques connected youth workers, including youth workers with fewer opportunities, and gave them chance to develop their competencies to apply media and social media tools in their work aiming to increase personal and professional competencies of young people with fewer opportunities. Once mobility activities were finalized the partners implemented capacity building activities in their communities. Capacity building activities had the form of debates raising awareness on using media tools at the work with young people. Besides increased capacities of the participants to implement international mobility and local capacity building activities key impact of the project ‘Less Opportunities + Media Tools = Better Opportunities’ is strengthen competencies of the partners to transfer new gained knowledge through their networks e.g. by spreading one of the key results of the project - ‘Booklet of Good Practices on Using Media Tools at Youth Work’.The project connects 6 organizations:1. Youth Workers Alliance from Serbia2. Youth Council Next Generation from Republic of Macedonia.3. Just Do It from Poland4. MladiInfo from Montenegro5. Media Terra Nea from Greece6. Y4S from AlbaniaIt will be KA2 project - Capacity Building youth – Western Balkans with financial support of Erasmus+ Programme.This project increased the capacity of involved partners through achieving this main Results:1. Realized one international meeting, two international training courses and twelve local capacity building activities in form of debates;2. Strengthened capacities of 6 organizations and 56 youth workers to effectively use media tools at their work with young people with fewer opportunities; 3. Raised awareness on using media tools at work with young people with fewer opportunities of 180 participants of local capacity building activities;4. Raised knowledge of 6 organizations and participants of international and local activities on Erasmus + Programme and developed 3 project ideas for future international projects;5. Booklet of good practices including description of learning activities, several tools created and published online on SALTO youth website, EU dissemination platform and printed out, link to the booklet: http://lomtbo.ka2project.net/booklet/

CONTEXTThe European Union's efforts to develop a set of strategies that promote an active role and youth participation in community and European activities are recognized. The objective is for young people to acquire and recognize their competences and the importance of adopting critical and conscious thoughts and attitudes, essential for social transformation.New generations of young people have greater access to information and opportunities, but continue to fail to filter those that fit their expectations, motivations and interests and, in two ways, can be a point of personal development and a point of social contribution.PROBLEMWe intend to respond to the problem of social exclusion of young people from community activities (volunteering), due to the absence of key competences (mainly citizenship) and the disconnection between their interests and the activities promoted.OBJECTIVES- Identification, collection and systematization of good practices and strategies, knowledge and experiences in the intervention with young people, especially with regard to the appeal and preparation of young people for local community activities;- Joint consolidation of a guideline oriented towards the appeal and preparation of young people for participation in local community activities;- Empowerment of young people with key competences for lifelong learning, especially citizenship competences;- Empowerment of youth workers with new key competences, practices, strategies and non-formal methods of youth intervention, boosting their capacity for local and transnational operationalization;- Strengthening the European partnership network, forcing the transnational opening of youth workers and organisations and the recognition of their work;- Promotion of social inclusion, namely in terms of access to opportunities, transfer of common social values, valuing European diversity and strengthening the European identity of young people, participation and citizenship.PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS1) Youth workers (YW)- Experienced and know-how in the youth field;- Knowing the social problem and needs;- Knowledgeable about the STEP 1 project and the Erasmus+ programme;- Motivated to produce knowledge and content to improve the intervention of youth workers and organisations among young people;- Motivated to involve young people, the community and stakeholders and to produce social changes.2) Youth- Young people between 13-30 years old;- Motivated to participate in the project and Erasmus+ programme;- Motivated to participate in local (voluntary) and transnational community activities;- Able to influence peer groups and the community;- Able to absorb results and adopt new thoughts and attitudes of participation and active citizenship.ACTIVITIES AND METHODOLOGYThe project will be developed based on the methodology of non-formal education, with informal and formal education being complementarily used.For local activities, the general reference is 20 participants, per organisation. In terms of other elements, the number must be defined by organisations based on their capabilities.The activities with a specific number are identified.1) PHASE 1: PLANNING AND PREPARATION- Internal meetings;- External meetings;- Transnational meeting (TM) 1 (2 yw per organisation);- Preparation.2) PHASE 2: IMPLEMENTATION- Virtual cooperation (VC);- Development of content and materials (DCM);- Diagnosis of local practices;- Training course (2 yw per organisation);- Local intervention;- TM 2 (same as the previous one);- Blended mobility (5 young people per organisation);- TM 3 (same as the previous one);- Final guideline.3) PHASE 3: MONITORING AND EVALUATION- VC;- DCM;- Monitoring and evaluation;- TM 4 (same as the previous one).4) PHASE 4: DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION OF RESULTS- VC;- DCM;- Dissemination and exploitation of results (includes contact-making event).EXPECTED RESULTS AND IMPACTS1) Resultsa. Tangibles:Final guideline and contents and materials developed during the project and/or dissemination of results.b. Intangibles:Key competencies described in the EU Council Recommendations reference framework on key competences for lifelong learning.2) Impacts- Empowerment with new competences (reference of the 8 key competences for lifelong learning in the EU Council Recommendations reference framework) and learning;- Improving the ability to understand and intervene in the face of young people's problems and needs;- Greater motivation and predisposition to participate socially, civically and democratically;- Adoption of inclusive and participatory behaviours;- Greater awareness of the European project and its role in its consolidation;- Innovation in target-oriented approaches;- Increased capacity and professionalism to take up work at transnational level.