<< Background >>Climate change is a reality of our times, and its negative impacts intensify day by day. With their solution-oriented and valuable perspectives, social enterprises contribute to the activities to save the future of our planet. Today, rapid digital transformation offers opportunities to develop social entrepreneurship ideas to drive social and environmental impacts while creating sustainable outputs to fight against environmental challenges. New technologies hold the key to resolving many of the significant problems in our environment: access to drinking water, electricity, quality education and health, improving the quality of care and the quality of life in cities, and conservation of the environment, among others. Digital technologies allow social enterprises to contribute positive social and environmental changes while enabling them to sustain their livings through financially viable social enterprises. However, social enterprises are in a precarious position in terms of their sustainability. According to research, 71% of social entrepreneurs still struggle to make a living from a social venture. (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/06/11/self-sustainability-the-dilemma-at-the-heart-of-social-entrepreneurship/). They experience difficulties in finding financial resources to continue their activities. While social enterprises work to a more sustainable environment, they suffer from sustainability problems in their business. Although digitalization offers enormous opportunities, environmental social enterprises can not exploit them adequately, and they lack digitalizing their business ideas or experiences.This situation reveals the urgent need to improve environmental social entrepreneurship activities through digital technologies. Digital transformation provides parallel growth of socioenvironmental and financial value for social enterprises. Using digital technologies in social enterprises serves as a supportive function to improve sustainability through enhancing convenience and efficiency while lowering costs of enterprises. (Gregori & Holzmann, 2020). Therefore, sustainability can be achieved through engaging digital technologies in the activities of environmental social enterprises. This aim has to be supported by comprehensive training materials, methodologies, and innovative tools for youth workers to improve their digital-based social entrepreneurship activities. Because youth workers are both insufficient and lack of resources in digital social entrepreneurship activities. The gamification approach is one of the most appropriate tools to access youth workers and strengthen their digital-based entrepreneurship skills. (https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/15495710/Games_final_JRC78777.pdf). For this reason, the gamification methodology, which attracts more attention of young people and has proven to be more effective concretely, needs to be adapted to the training materials for improving the entrepreneurship skills of youth workers. Consequently, accessibility and connectivity provided by digital tools enlarge the impact areas of social enterprises and equip youth workers with innovative tools to fight against environmental and social challenges.<< Objectives >>Accordingly, the overall objective of the project is to improve environmental social entrepreneurship activities of youth work through digitalization.The specific objectives are;•Enhancing the competencies of youth workers on digital-based social/environmental entrepreneurship training activities through increasing innovative and high-quality in-formal and non-formal training materials•Promoting social entrepreneurship spirit and raising awareness of environmental issues among young people; and encouraging them to become an E-MAKER for their local communities. •Building capacities of organizations on innovative social entrepreneurship training to work transnationally and across sectorsOther issues that we want to achieve by the project are as follows: ( for youth workers, young people within the institution and outside, social enterprises and other relevant stakeholders)- Strengthening the social entrepreneurship activities of youth workers and equipping them with educational materials including innovative digital tools- Developing advanced digital skills of youth workers (in terms of social entrepreneurship; marketing, financial strategy, digital environmental solutions, sustainable green communities, etc.)- To improve the professional and soft skills of youth workers, to increase their professional motivation and daily satisfaction- To increase the communication of youth workers with their colleagues and to improve their business skills to work at the EU level- Adapting the gamification methodology that may attract the attention of young people to the youth work of participating institutions- Creating a road map to contribute to the sustainability of Social Enterprises- Contributing to the internationalization strategies of institutions and promoting cross-border cooperation- To increase the opportunities of young people to benefit from digital opportunities to their green skills- To improve young people soft skills by increasing their communication with cross-border transmitters; For example, active citizenship, environmental activism, solidarity and social entrepreneurship, teamwork spirit, environmental awareness, digital / social entrepreneurship, communication, self-return, etc. (LTT activity)- To create a more sustainable society, in both a social and environmental sense, into an opportunity to build a professional future through entrepreneurship and social innovation.<< Implementation >>Activities were designed to meet the identified needs in the field of social entrepreneurship. Each activity and the output will support the objectives of the project. The main activity of the project will be the development of three intellectual outputs. Through transnational meetings, LTT activity, and multiplier events, the quality of the outputs will be intensified. Accordingly,The development of the intellectual outputs:The non-formal training toolkit of digital social entrepreneurship: will be produced for the youth workers to improve their skills and resources to train young people on social entrepreneurship and environmental challenges including digital opportunities. The training materials included in the toolkit will be designed by non-formal learning methodologies. In this way, the transversal and soft skills of young people will be enhanced as well as the social entrepreneurship skills. LTT activity will be significant to assess the quality of the training materials and to make necessary improvements.The manual for digitalization of social enterprises: will be developed to enhance the advanced digital skills of the youth workers. The manual will cover all stages and the workflows in the social enterprises, including data management, financial management and marketing, education, research, and capacity building activities for the environmental issues. EU&PRO will be an associated partner for organizing virtual classes for youth workers after completing the output. Through these virtual classes, youth workers will receive training on digital opportunities to be employed in different stages of social enterprises. On the one hand, the functionality of training materials in the online manual will be tested, and on the other hand, youth workers will gain invaluable skills and resources to improve the sustainability of their enterprises.Virtual Board Game: will improve the social entrepreneurship skills of youth workers and young people in innovative and enjoyable ways. The game will be instructive for the target groups since players will learn the fundamentals of social entrepreneurship, the models of social enterprises, and how to achieve sustainability while playing the game. Playtesting sessions will be implemented to test the game with youth workers from partner institutions after completing the output. Through these playtesting sessions and feedback received from participants, improvements will be made to the game. Furthermore, the virtual board game will be available on online platforms without any costs or limitations. In this way, the project will reach more target groups beyond the European borders.LTT activity:The aim of the activity is to improve the social entrepreneurship skills of young people aged between 18-30. Young people who are working to fight against environmental challenges in youth initiatives, university clubs, or individually will be encouraged to implement their innovative ideas in social enterprises through this activity. All training materials will be designed to equip young people with the necessary skills and competencies. Moreover, through LTT activity, the toolkit will be tested whether the training materials are of desired quality or not. Transnational Meetings:Through the meetings, the quality of the project outputs, the time and budget management, and the general project management will be regulated by all partner institutions. These meetings will strengthen the coordination and communication between partners. In this way, a productive working environment will be ensured to improve the quality, effects, and scope of the activities. Multiplier Events:During the multiplier events and dissemination activities, project outputs and results will be introduced to the target groups, NGOs, decision-making authorities, and individuals. Thanks to these activities, the awareness of environmental problems and social entrepreneurship will be increased in society.<< Results >>The project will produce both tangible and intangible results on participants, target groups, participating institutions, and broader circles. Three intellectual outputs will be the most significant tangible results of the project.The intellectual outputs will be used by the participating institutions to improve youth workers' digital competencies and promote social entrepreneurship training of young people. The non-formal toolkit and the online manual to be produced as tangible results will enhance the quality of management, research, marketing, and youth work in the participating institutions by strengthening the social entrepreneurship skills and advanced digital competencies of youth workers. In this way, the partner institutions will satisfy the needs of their target groups with innovative and comprehensive resources. Moreover, the transnational cooperation will enable the participating institutions to produce quality results to improve the sustainability of the social enterprises and the social entrepreneurship skills of young people. Youth workers will become much more competent in managing all stages in and the workflow of the social enterprises by completing the project and integrating the intellectual outputs into the everyday activities of the participating institutions. Furthermore, a virtual board game will add value to the capacities of the participating institutions by increasing their recognition and reputation at the international level.The project activities will enhance the know-how for all partners, improving capacities and professionalism to work at the EU level, strengthening their networks across Europe.Furthermore, the participants from all partner institutions will benefit from the results produced during the project. The project's outcomes will create the ideal setting for participants from partner institutions to develop more modern, professional, and open working environments. Transversal and soft skills obtained throughout the project implementation will add value to the work culture in the institutions. The project results will enhance the management, team-working, and communication skills of managing staff and project working groups in all participating institutions. Other expected results of the project are as follows:Youth workers will be provided comprehensive training materials on advanced digital skills to manage the workflow of the social enterprises in all stages, including financial management and marketing, data management, research, education, and capacity-building for the environmental issues.Youth workers will be equipped with innovative tools, training methodologies, and materials to train young people on digital social entrepreneurship and environmental challenges.The outputs of the project will strengthen the non-formal training capacities of the youth workers and, in this way, the necessary quality human resources will be provided for the sustainability of the social enterprises.Through the implementation of the intellectual outputs, young people will receive quality tips, clue or information on social entrepreneurship.Through non-formal training activities, young people’s social entrepreneurship skills, as well as soft skills such as team-working, communication, and initiative skills, will be enhanced.The awareness of environmental issues will be increased among young people, and they will be encouraged to take action to solve these problems and to become E-Makers.The project results will be disseminated to the wider circles so that other social enterprises will benefit from the training materials and tools produced during the project. The awareness of environmental challenges will be increased in society. In this way, the social enterprises will be able to build relationships with other interest groups, institutions, and initiatives across the boundaries.