GO-CIRCULAR project proposal means to be a follow-up of Youth Re Working Rural project (https://youthreworking.eu/), project aiming at fostering youth entrepreneurship and local development in rural areas through co-working and spaces reconversion. GO-CIRCULAR innovates and complement Youth Re-Working Rural, levering of products and results achieved and enlarging its area of action. Project’s main objective is to promote employment and entrepreneurship in European rural areas by empowering young people with the capabilities to create co-working & start-up incubators exploiting potentialities offered by circular economy, with concrete examples in three specific areas: furniture, agro-business & building/housing, as these economic sectors represent strategic fields for European smart economic and social development. Project’s specific objectives are:- to promote employment and entrepreneurship in European rural areas by increasing young people capabilities to reconvert empty spaces to host co-working & start-up incubators, exploiting potentialities offered by circular economy;- to promote youth skills and competencies for the development of co-working spaces & start-up incubators focused on three specific areas: furniture, agro-business & building/housing;- to equip young people with relevant circular economy skills, that are at a cross roads between citizenship competencies and entrepreneurial competences;- to foster youth capabilities to operate at transnational level for developing joint concrete circular coworking projects.The project will be implemented by a complementary partnership composed by 6 organisations from 4 different EU countries (Slovenia, Norway, Denmark and Italy). There is a good balance between not for profit organisations dealing with education and training addressed to young people and companies that have implemented successful projects in the field of circularity. Project will involve directly in training activities at least 100 young people, aged between 20 and 29 years, living in different rural areas, interested in the topics covered by the project (entrepreneurship, coworking, start-up, circular economy and sustainable economic development) and in personal development. Specific attention is given to NEET. By participating to the project, young people will see their opportunities for self employment and employability improved, thanks to the relevant skills gained for exploiting potentialities offered by circular economy for co-working and start-up incubators development.Direct involvement of relevant stakeholders (such as spaces owners, business angels, public administrators, schools, youth workers and NGOs, companies investors and trainers) is achieved through the creation of Local Development Open Groups, evaluation of intellectual outputs and projects developed by learners during C activities, participation to the Virtual Community and exploitation purposes. The GO-CIRCUALR Project, in order to materialise its objectives and produce its deliverables, comprises a set of intellectual outputs and C activities, supported by management activities and dissemination and exploitation activities that will ensure the use of its results even after the project has ended. C activities will constitute the core of the project as they will allow groups of young people to put ideas into practice; by creating business ideas for circular coworking spaces and start-up incubators & physical prototypes. Moreover, project foresees the production, use, evaluation and promotion of 4 intellectual outputs: IO 1 - Training programme for co-working & start-up incubators managers in the era of circular economy, IO2 - Manual for business idea development & prototyping, IO 3 - European Qualification Framework of the co-working & start-up incubator manager in the era of circular economy, IO4 - Compendium of prototypes: including youth’ workplace business projects developed during c activities. IO 4 will be the most relevant product for assuring the sustainability of the project.All intellectual outputs will be uploaded on the website and made available to target groups, partners, associate partners and external stakeholders during and beyond the life of the project. Circular co-working spaces prototypes will remain visible to external stakeholders interested in further investing in circular co-working models. The dissemination activities will be designed ad hoc for the new virtual generation and to assure transferability and sustainability of products and results. Instragram, You Tube and the Virtual Community will be the core of the dissemination strategy. Partners commit themselves to further invest in co-working creation and improvement and to create a bridge between young people and potential investors to make sure that, at least some of the idas developed, could become real coworking and start-up incubators spaces in the next future.

One of the priority areas of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 aims at raising the employment rate of persons with disabilities working in the open labour market. They represent onesixth of the EUs overall working-age population, but their employment rate is comparatively low.Employment contributes to social inclusion by providing opportunities for social participation. It enhances self esteem and contributes to quality of life. This is particularly true for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who have difficulties in managing non-structured time, and for whose employment represents an important aid for personal satisfaction.Autism covers a wide range of symptoms, skills and levels of disability and is therefore referred to as a disorder. A person can be diagnosed with severe or mild autism, depending on the level of their impairment. One common symptom is the lack of ability to socialize and engage fully in verbal or nonverbal communication. Autistic people often display above-average skills in particular fields like reading, language, music or spatial skills. However, because of the shortcomings they may display in social interaction and other fields they are often considered ‘inadequate’ for regular employment and are therefore reduced to further social exclusion.The project’s outputs and activities have been informed by the overriding objective of developing a more open and inclusive labour market and fostering participation of people affected by ASD through the development of new competences for professionals of the recruiting and employment processes.Main objectives of the project are:- Raise awareness of companies, labour market institutions, employment offices, on the need of adapt recruiting systems to facilitate the professional inclusion of our target group.- Empower employment officers, job counsellors and HR managers to better understand how to improve their governance structures, competences and institutional culture in reference to professional inclusion of people with ASD.- Bridge the gap between the target group and the labour market institutions and subjects, helping them better engage with each other.- Provide a freely accessible, permanent set of resources and tools for the continuous development of employment institutions, companies, HR managers through the development of new competences and skills.The project team will achieve these goals in compliance with the program priorities of social inclusion, increasing learning demand and take-up through effective outreach, guidance and motivation strategies and extending and developing the competences of educators and other personnel who support adult learners.The activities will include: management, coordination and monitoring activities; activities dedicated to the production of the Intellectual Outputs and achieving the set objectives and outcomes and activities for dissemination, exploitation and provision of sustainability.3 Intellectual outputs will be produced along project duration: - IO1 Inclusion Champion Profile;- IO 2 Work-Based learning pathways; - IO 3 Training Courses. The envisaged impact for the first main target group - employment officers, job counsellors and HR managers, is that they will be able to improve the quality and widen the scope of the services they offer and thus improve their skills and raise their awareness.The impact for the second target group - the young adults affected by ASD, will be their better employability.The connection between the two target groups will also be guaranteed by the creation of the European Pool for inclusion - a platform connecting job seekers, companies, career practitioners.To improve the expected results and guarantee a wide dissemination of project results, products, outputs and learning materials will be freely accessible.Additional results will be produced by the project to maximize and foster the impact of the project, like the creation of a network on VET institutions, the implementation of an international forum for exchange of good practices and networking.To foster the participation and therefore the benefits for VET institutions, partners will committ to involve institutions at local and national level in all phases of the project, trough dissemination activities and trough direct involvement.Project management results:- Successful implementation of the project and impact achieved: conditions provided through due professional strategic partnership establishment, careful planning, human and financial resources allocation, Project and Quality Management Plan, etc.Successful project dissemination and solid provision of project sustainability: Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation Plan, Dissemination activities, etc.- European dimension of project outcomes and cooperation between involved organizations.

"The experiences of young people in rural areas are somewhat different from those of their urban counterparts. This is confirmed when it comes to employment conditions and opportunities in the transition phase from school to work: rural labour markets record the lowest employment rate among young people (15-24 years old - Eurostat, 2017) and are characterised by low skilled and insecure employment. Unsurprisingly, this causes loss of human capital and geographical mobility (""brain drain"") to big cities, with serious consequences not only for youth but also for rural territories and the EU society as a whole (GDP loss, weakening of social cohesion, loss of human capital).OECD studies (2017) confirm there is substantial potential to combat youth unemployment and increase labour market participation by facilitating business creation. The ambitious and innovative objective of CRAFT project is to leverage on a number of real and perceived advantages which may attract people to live in/stay in EU rural areas, as confirmed also during the successfull Erasmus+ initiative ""Youth reworking rural"" (https://youthreworking.eu), thus promoting entrepreneurship among young people in EU rural areas by providing them the fundamentals to setup - within reconverted empty spaces - collaborative working environments which will be hinged on some of the key trends affecting the future labour market, namely the demographic change, the climate change and the technological change (see also the results of ""Future Time Traveller"" Erasmus+ project http://future-time-traveller.eu/). The core idea is to make those coworking spots act as future skills' propulsor engines rather than as aseptic work hangouts, around 3 sectors which are crucial towards the pursue of the European smart, sustainable and inclusive development:- personal care and health-related jobs and services;- green economy;- science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics STE(A)M.The project will be implemented by a complementary partnership composed by 7 organisations from 7 different EU countries. The initiative will be directly addressed to more than 50 young people (18-25 years old) of rural territories involved in the project, as well as to mentors, counsellors, co-working managers, who will be involved in specific activities. Moreover, the whole local socio-economic system and its relevant stakeholders will be positively impacted by the project. CRAFT Project, in order to materialise its objectives and produce its deliverables, comprises a set of intellectual outputs, one learning activity and several multiplier events , supported by management activities and dissemination and exploitation activities that will ensure the use of its results even after the project has ended.The C activity and multiplier events will constitute the core of the project as they will allow groups of young people to put ideas into practice; by creating collaborative workspaces for the future but virtually and as physical prototypes. Moreover, project foresees the production, use, evaluation and promotion of 4 intellectual outputs: IO1 - Training programme for builders of future-looking collaborative work environments in rural areas; IO2 - Educational 3D virtual world- CRAFT VW Platform; IO3 - E-book for a forward-looking management of coworking spaces; IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers. All intellectual outputs will be uploaded on the website and made available to target groups, partners, associate partners and external stakeholders during and beyond the life of the project. IO 2- Educational 3D virtual world will be open to customization in the form of expanding the pedagogical and learning tasks where new features and scripts can be implemented based on the openness of the underlying platform; while IO4 - Multi-actor territorial networks of policy change-makers will remain active and will be further expanded. Co-working spaces prototypes will remain visible to external stakeholders interested in further investing in co-working models.The dissemination activities will be designed ad hoc for the new virtual generation and to assure transferability and sustainability of products and results. Instragram, You Tube and the FB page will be the core of the dissemination strategy. Partners commit themselves to further invest in co-working creation and improvement and to create a bridge between young people and potential investors to make sure that, at least some of the ideas developed, could become real collaborative work spaces in the next future."