Agritourism and Youth Entrepreneurship

The training "Agritourism and Youth Entrepreneurship" aims to equip youth workers with knowledge, skills and competences on rural tourism and youth entrepreneurship in order to develop their professionalism in enhancing youth employability in the labour market, improving the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among young people and volunteers, rising the awareness on alternative and ecological strategies of business, based on environmental practices, high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources, high animal welfare standards, attention to food production processes and local economy.
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The persistence of rising levels of youth unemployment, low participation in labour market and the centrality of informal economy as significant job provider in Europe and beyond require to think to innovative strategies of integration in the labour market and new approaches to the economy and the development strategies.
Indeed, increasing youth employment is central to the EU's employment policy, within the context of the Europe 2020 growth and jobs strategy and its Youth on the Move flagship initiative.
In the recent years, new models of business in tourism field are born and a particular attention to farm business and food production processes is arising in answer to the failure of the traditional economic and development models.

Rural tourism and green entrepreneurship aims to implement sustainable business solutions, in which young people can put in reality new ideas, innovative and long-run projects, in order to foster a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Enhancing the development of green entrepreneurial skills in rural tourism field let the young people experience alternative business strategies in which they can design and share their innovative ideas and fostering the rising of financial and social capital in the local community.
The attention to agritourism and youth entrepreneurship shares mutual goals with other central themes for youth in Europe and beyond, as the land conservation, the rural development, the environmental education and the food security.

The purpose of the project is:
To develop the professionalism of youth workers in enhancing youth employability in the labour market, improving the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship linked to rural tourism and ecological and inclusive economic strategies.
The participants will have the opportunity to apply models, tools, best practices, and frameworks to incorporate social and environmental dimensions into identification and ethical exploitation of business opportunities, identifying specific green opportunities, developing a business plan, and providing guidance on how to secure funding and operationalize the plans.

Objectives
to equip participant with practical skills on rural tourism and entrepreneurship principles, with a particular attention to local community and environment protection, in order to experience how to implement basic green entrepreneurship concepts.
to let the participant to have a practical entrepreneurial experience, creating pilot entrepreneurial project ideas of a farm business.
To define a module/tutorial related to agritourism and youth entrepreneurship to disseminate project’s results.
to equip participants with skills to become facilitators of learning and multipliers of ideas
to become acquainted with the non-formal education methods and promote them in the field of youth work.

Venue
Shkodër, Albania

Date
21-28 July 2017