TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Ismail Sehic
The aim of the project “Start it UP, Keep it UP” is to gather 6 youth organizations across Europe for developing assistance and training of future potential social entrepreneurs by establishing social entrepreneurs hubs and training mentors in social entrepreneurship.
The project “Start it UP, Keep it UP” has the following objectives and related key activities:
Objective 1: To build the capacity of youth NGOs in giving consulting for young people in social entrepreneurship.
Key activity 1: Establishment of social entrepreneur hubs in 6 countries across Europe. The hubs will gather young social entrepreneurs for networking and provide young people interested in social entrepreneurship with necessary consulting and assistance.
Key activity 2: A long-term training course for social entrepreneurship mentors with 3 physical trainings and mentorship practice phase.
Objective 2: To create a space for assessment and discussion of the impact of social entrepreneurship in decreasing unemployment and building a better environment with relevant stakeholders.
Key activity 1: “Youth Social Entrepreneurship Forum” which will be organized in Baku city and will gather 60 young people involved in social entrepreneurship and relevant stakeholders in order to discuss the role of social entrepreneurship in youth employment and social development in Europe.
Key activity 2: Study-visits to existing social enterprises in the hosting cities during the planned physical meetings of the project (advanced planning meeting, residential trainings, Forum and evaluation meeting) for exchange of best practices and visualisation of the impact of social enterprises.
Objective 3: To increase the knowledge of young people in social entrepreneurship and provide them with opportunities and tools for starting their own “social start-ups”.
Key activity 1: Long-term training courses for 120 young people in 6 countries, where they’ll identify the areas they want to work on and start running their own start-ups.
Key activity 2: Launch an online tool which will provide young people with online modules on social entrepreneurship and strengthen the network between young social entrepreneurs.
Key activity 3: Establishment of a social start-up incubator in the city of applying organization, which will ensure the sustainability of this project and create a space for social entrepreneurs to learn and practice their skills.
Key activity 4: Development of the manuals in the language of the partner countries and English version in order to provide young people with the basic information on how to start the social enterprise.
At this training, we had 4 participants + 1 coordinator per country. Countries who took part ant this TC are Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Croatia. In total it was 25 participants who took part in this first TC.
1) 1 project coordinator – the coordinator will be appointed by partner organization. The coordinator will attend the advanced planning meeting, the mobility activities (the first, second and the third training of mentors), the Forum in Baku and evaluation meeting. The coordinator will take the commitment to be in charge of project implementation on behalf of his/her organization, as well as dedicate time for preparation, evaluation and follow-up.
2) 4 mentors – the mentors will be selected internally by the partner organizations. The consortium will receive the resumes and motivation letters of the mentors selected. The mentors will be required to dedicate certain time for conducting all local activities and attend project meetings. The mentors profile includes the people who have experience in establishing and running a social enterprise, as well as some basic knowledge and experience as a coach, trainer or mentor
3) 20 participants for local follow-up trainings – the participants will be selected based on open calls and applications. The consortium will receive the applications and motivation letters of the mentors selected. The participants profile will be young people from 18 to 29 years, interested and eager to establish their social enterprises as individuals or groups, addressing the social needs in their local or regional context. The participants will be committed to attend all trainings by mentors.
I was using a different kind of methods and tools from SALTO and other websites for young entrepreneurs. I combine all of them through different kind of activities. We were mostly focused on non-formal education and entrepreneurship. We use a lot of role-plays and group workshops.
The mobility activities of our project are called “Training of Mentors”. It total there will be 3 training of mentors conducted during 18 month within 21 project implementation months, with 1 training in each 6 moths.
The mobility activities are aimed to provide the mentors with necessary expertise, skills, knowledge and capacity to guide and mentor the local groups. The activities will be organized as interactive 7 days training courses each. The trainings will be conducted using the methodology of non-formal learning. After each training participants will be required to implement the tasks set during the training course (involve participants for local trainings, implement training courses, organize workshops and counselling sessions).
Between the trainings of mentors the future mentors will conduct the mentioned local trainings and actively work with potential participants and future social entrepreneurs.
The mobility activities will give triple-impact effect. First, as the direct target group, the mentors themselves will be benefitted by building their capacity as future mentors. Second, the organizations will be strengthening their network between each other, as during the training courses some of the sessions will be dedicated to network building. Third, the participants of local training courses will be benefitted indirectly, as they will be provided with mentoring in order to start their own social enterprises.
During each of the mobility activity and other trips for capacity building activities, we will organize a study visit to the existing social start-ups in the hosting cities. This will give a chance to build and strengthen the network among social enterprises, as well as inspire and give ideas for social start-ups.
The expected impact of our mobility project is closely linked to its long-term strategic goal of continuation as a Capacity Building activity with the aim of promotion of social entrepreneurship in Europe. The coordination team of the project will prepare an IMPACT-CHANE at the preparation period of the project, identifying the expected impact (macro level), the outcomes (mezzo) and the outputs (micro – the direct results of the foreseen activities) of the mobility project, which will later have to be developed by the participants to become the IMPACT-CHANE of the “Start it UP, Keep it UP” project.
1) Project partners
The project partners will benefit from the project as following:
- Gaining 4 expertised mentors, who will be able to operate as counsellors for young social entrepreneurs;
- Building its capacity for operation as a social entrepreneurs hubs (centers) for guiding and consulting young social entrepreneurs;
- Receiving the official recognition (as a certificate) which will help the organizations to continue its work in this area.
2) Mentors
In regards to the personal development of the mentors the project shall contribute to the following:
- Gaining knowledge on youth social entrepreneurship which can be used in work;
- Gaining the expertise in order to operate as social entrepreneurship counsellors and share their knowledge with young people;
- Developing mentors’ competences in planning capacity development measures on local level;
- Developing mentors’ analytical skills and competencies in structural thinking;
- Fostering tolerance and mutual understanding between participants;
- Developing participants’ teamwork, guiding, advising and communication skills.
3) The participants of the training course
The participants are expected to:
- Increase their knowledge of social entrepreneurship and its impact on community;
- Be able to plan international cooperation projects on youth employment and entrepreneurship with European partners based on an understanding of the local realities;
- Be able to conduct long-term and short-term training courses on social entrepreneurship;
- Have implemented the long-term project for future social entrepreneurs in cooperation with other promoters of the training course.
4) Consortium:
- Will be provided with a floor for a cooperation;
- Will have a chance to involve the consortium for further projects on the same and different topics.
5) Local community
The local community is expected to benefit from the project by:
- Development of receiving an external analysis of professional youth workers on the situation of young people;
- Getting in touch with European organisations willing and capable to cooperate with local youth NGOs on capacity development.
6) European youth
- Benefiting through the future social start-ups as the follow-ups of this project;
- Benefiting through the dissemination projects and trainings by the participants of this project.
I was the main trainer of the Training Course. My focus was on the non-formal education and innovative part of entrepreneurship as well as transferring knowledge about Mentorship process and how to create a business.
I helped participants to find their role in the Start-up ecosystem because they should be mentors to the other 5 metees in their countries.