Youth Entrepreneurship Impact Lab

32 youth workers and youth leaders from 4 countries (Slovakia, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey) participated in the 10-day international training course "Youth Entrepreneurship Impact Lab" which took place in Yerevan, Armenia from 23 November-2 December 2017.

Unemployment is a big challenge for Europe and neighboring countries. The unprecedented technological development and increased inter-dependence that the world is experiencing have not provided a solution to ones who are left outside the system, especially the young people with fewer opportunities who find it more and more difficult to meet the ever-changing labor market demands.

This problem has been aggravated given the current context concerning young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Europe. The frustration and disempowerment of the disadvantaged youth in general and these young migrants and asylum seekers in particular can breed low self-esteem, low motivation, cynicism and radicalization.

Within the framework of potential efforts and strategies to boost employment and job creation for young people, entrepreneurship is increasingly accepted as an important means and a valuable additional strategy to create jobs and improve livelihoods and economic independence of young people. It is an innovative approach for inclusion of young people with disadvantaged backgrounds, especially newly arrived migrants and refugees into society and today’s changing labour markets.

Youth workers and youth leaders working directly with young unemployed people and disadvantaged youth among refugees/asylum seekers and migrants are uniquely positioned to inspire and empower youth to be creative, entrepreneurial and business minded through non-formal and informal activities and raise their self-confidence and enthusiasm which leads to promotion of entrepreneurial culture, higher awareness of personal empowerment and inclusion which, in its turn, prevents violent radicalization.

The international training course "Youth Entrepreneurship Impact Lab" aimed to train and equip youth workers and youth leaders working directly with young unemployed people and disadvantaged youth from refugees/asylum seekers and migrants with essential entrepreneurial and business tools, methods and skills to enable them to contribute to tackling of the problem of unemployment among youth through quality youth work that promotes self-employment and entrepreneurial culture.

The training course was based on non formal learning methods and principles, intercultural dialogue and communication including group discussions, interactive presentations, participant’s lead workshops, team work,etc. The methodology of the project stimulated active participation, sense of initiative and involvement of the learners. It created a learning space with better self-awareness and awareness of the needs and goals of the groups of young people they work with to enhance the results of the learning process and give birth to high quality projects led by the participants in the future. The project revealed the value of the Erasmus+ Programme as a tool for youth empowerment and raised awareness about Youthpass tool for supporting young people harness skills and personal growth through self-reflection and learning documentation.

The objectives of the training course were:
- Introduce youth entrepreneurship as a tool of fighting youth unemployment;
- Support youth workers in developing and sharing effective methods in reaching out to marginalized young people, refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and in preventing racism and intolerance among youth;
- Learn to use youth work to empower youngsters to start their creative search for entrepreneurial opportunities;
- Learn to use non-formal education to support current and future job-seekers to be pro-active and able to apply entrepreneurial approach into career development;
- Explore ways for using youth work to bring alienated and marginalized youth back into the economic mainstream and giving them a sense of meaning and belonging; Helping address some of the socio-psychological problems and delinquency that arises from joblessness;
- Learn to use Youthpass and the Key Competences to support young people through creative process of skill harnessing, self-reflection and documentation of the personal learning process;
- Develop quality youth mobility projects to be applied under Erasmus+ Programme;
- Transfer knowledge and skills by developing and publishing online the booklet “Promoting Entrepreneurship Through Youth Work With Marginalized Young People, Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants”