"<< Background >>Today's youth, in addition to the problems that young people have faced for centuries, must additionally confront two obstacles to their sustainable development. Like the mythical serpent Uroboros, the current situation of climate change and rising youth unemployment are devouring each other.Poland ranks on the infamous list of European countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the last year measured, 2018 (Eurostat, 2021). The European youth unemployment rate has doubled in recent years, rising continuously since 2008 - the last great economic crisis. Now we are preparing for another crisis, and each new one weakens our societies more and more. Little is still being done to combat climate change, not to mention the fact that mere prevention may no longer be enough - what humanity and the planet need is a complete overhaul of the economic system and what we put at the heart of our concerns - it is time to knock profit off its pedestal and put the good of society and the planet in its place. Only in this way will we give ourselves and our young people the chance to live life to the full and develop sustainably. Therefore, one of the most desired competences among the youth is sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, and a crucial role in building them should be played by education, also the informal and non-formal one, because of the lack of sufficient offer in this field in the formal education (so far only Italy has introduced compulsory formal education in the field of climate changes in Europe, and the research of the Human Capital Balance for the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development proves that despite unemployment, over 3/4 of employers experience difficulties in finding candidates who meet their expectations. In their opinion, young people lack such competences as: independence, entrepreneurship, showing initiative, resistance to stress and motivation). Moreover, key competences for lifelong learning according to the ""Key competences for lifelong learning - a European reference framework"" include entrepreneurship.All this said, is European entrepreneurship ready for an ecological transformation? How to work with the youth with the competences they lack? How to finance green projects? What are the barriers to development in this direction? How to get young people interested in environmentally and socially responsible projects? How to avoid green-washing? What can be done to ensure that pro-environmental behaviour - both by young entrepreneurs and their potential customers - is not just superficial, but involves a real and deep concern for the environment and society?Instead of looking on passively, our partnership (3 Non-governmental organisations: Oczy Szeroko Otwarte, OSO, from Poland, Foundation of Knowledge, FK, from Hungary and Platform for Alternative and Sustainable Solutions, PASOS, from Spain) chooses action. We intend to achieve these seemingly mutually exclusive goals by taking as our starting point the two main solutions we have detected: permaculture and entrepreneurship, and combine them into the present project titled ""PermaCOOLtura"".Entrepreneurship is an alternative path to the traditional career path that allows for financial independence and through which the risk of social exclusion is minimized. Unfortunately, young people are often discouraged from embarking on it by a lack of appropriate tools and knowledge, even though they are willing and curious about it. Permaculture is still a very little known topic among young people. Consequently, the tools and systems it offers, which can be successfully used by young entrepreneurs in their initiatives, regardless of their subject matter, are unknown.<< Objectives >>Among the many problems affecting young people, two seem particularly pressing: unemployment and climate change.Our 3 organisations have decided to implement the PermaCOOLtura project to counter both problems with 2 main solutions: entrepreneurship and permaculture.Permaculture is the discipline of designing a sustainable environment in all its dimensions: social, economic and ecological, based on 3 pillars:-Taking care of the Earth-Taking care of the people-Sharing the surplus This field is still not very well known in Poland, especially in our Świętokrzyskie Province: according to https://mapa.permakultura.edu.pl/ and our own research and observations, right now there are no permaculture projects in our region, no trainings or even volunteering related to this topic: we wish to fill this gap by training our youth workers and offering free PermaCOOLtura workshops to the Świętokrzyskie region’s youth.On the other hand, the so-called ""green entrepreneurship"", according to the Ngo.pl portal, is an opportunity to build a competitive advantage for social enterprises, and creating an offer based on ecological solutions, which are still not very popular in our country but, according to the portal, will certainly grow in popularity, is a good idea for development. In addition, the growing popularity of networks among management professionals has also been observed in recent years, mainly due to the dynamic development of the so-called network interaction primarily ""innovation-oriented, i.e. interaction in an innovation network. Interaction is a positive influence."" (Case study of an inter-organisational network in the environmental goods and services sector, Sulich A., 2020).Our project fits into this idea through the following Objectives:Objective 1: To increase knowledge about permaculture, entrepreneurship and climate change initiatives among project participants, youth workers from our organisations.Objective 2: To increase youth workers' awareness of the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Specific Objective 2.1: To increase the awareness of youth workers from our organisations on the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Specific Objective 2.2: To increase awareness of youth workers from outside our organisations about the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work through new teaching materials.Objective 3: To raise awareness among youth workers of the use of permaculture in youth entrepreneurship work.<< Implementation >>The urgent need for a 'green' transition has never been more apparent: 2020 is the year the Arctic melts faster than most climate studies have been predicting, a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature perilously alarms that nearly two-thirds of the world's wildlife has been destroyed since the 1970s, and one of the consequences of it is the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis, with not only sanitary but also economic and social repercussions and needs for change.Europe is not unaware of those trends. With the Green Deal policy, it reached an agreement, committing to implement the Paris Climate Agenda and make the continent climate-neutral by 2050. However, as the World Economic Forum points out (2020), the pandemic has made key actors in all sectors realise that this change needs to happen much quicker and that action is required now to achieve a much more sustainable, climate-neutral and adaptable economy. By devoting more than 20% of its recovery plan to the green transition, compared to 1-3% for similar purposes in the programmes of the other major economies of the world, the European Union is on the way to fostering a new, more social and greener entrepreneurship. Businesses sector representatives themselves are also supporting this trend: in spring 2020 they formed the CEO Action Group for the Green Deal recognising the value and importance of the Green Deal as a strategy for sustainability and the direction it sets. The International Energy Agency has also demonstrated that green transition just in the sector of energy could create millions of job vacancies. This new business group has also called on EU to strongly build recovery strategy on sustainability, closed-loop and sustainable economies, whereas helping entrepreneurs on their path to green transformation. Secondly, the group needs also to demonstrate how the entrepreneurs can play its transformative role in a range of initiatives in sectors including services, renewable energy, construction, mobility or food.Also in Poland, in March 2021, B.Ryszawska, Ph.D., author of the book ""Green economy - theoretical foundations of the concept and measurement of its implementation in the European Union"" reminded that the EU plan for 2021-2027 is the largest ever injection of funds for the development of the Polish economy to help rebuild the EU after the pandemic and to support investments in... environmental and digital transformation. Of the subsidies in the National Recovery Plan, at least 37% will go towards the goals of ecological transformation, including adaptation to climate change and the protection of biodiversity, and these activities must contribute to achieving the EU's climate goals (zero carbon by 2050). The Union is also betting on support for Polish SMEs and micro businesses that want to invest in green technologies.In our Partnership, we believe that young people will play a key role in this process, therefore we want to contribute by training them and inspiring them to act in this direction. To achieve this, we will carry out activities such as:-Selection of participants-Language preparation-Pedagogical preparation-Preparatory meetings1. Project meeting Spain2. Project meeting in Hungary3. Project meeting in Poland-Study visit in Poland-Course in Spain-Development phase of the Result (interactive book) and its testing-Dissemination campaign-Transfer of knowledge and tools-3 dissemination events, one in Poland, one in Spain and one in Hungary-Consultation period for other NGOs, youth workers and institutions outside the Third Sector that will want to implement the materials provided in the book.Intern workshops: Each organisation will organise 2 in-house workshops, during which the participants of the project will communicate its results, best practices and tools to the rest of the team of each NGO.PermaCOOLtura workshops: free workshops for young people from each of our 3 communities.<< Results >>The project aims to provide youth workers with innovative teaching materials to use permaculture and use it to design sustainable initiatives and support green entrepreneurship in any field. The techniques for designing and implementing initiatives learned during this project will be transferable to youth workers in the future, through their transfer to young people in their communities, as well as collaborating on new initiatives with the organisations involved.Access to these learning units will be easy and free of charge, so that any young person or youth worker can benefit from this high quality information.It is also expected that the project will contribute to the acquisition of skills necessary for entrepreneurship by young people and youth workers, such as:-Improved knowledge and skills in developing sustainable projects.-Improving interpersonal relationships.-Improving teamwork.-Improving problem-solving and decision-making skills.-Preparation for entering the labour market.-Improving innovation skills.-Improving motivation and self-esteem.Regarding people from disadvantaged backgrounds, the project will also produce the following results:-Faster identification of personal and social difficulties in entrepreneurship.-Better visibility of initiatives.-Faster coping with stress.-Development of social and intercultural skills."