Following up on the findings of research on
"Stimulating Youth Entrepreneurship: Barriers and Incentives to Enterprise Start-ups by Young People" and the 2013 report
on the Global State of Youth Entrepreneurship , there is a growing
variety of awareness and promotion programmes (in formal as well as non-formal
education) facilitating the development of youth entrepreneurship. The driving
force behind these initiatives is the strong hope and expectation that the programmes
will contribute to the creation of youth employment opportunities by supporting entrepreneurship training specifically geared towards young people. All
this against the backdrop of weak economic recovery and escalating youth
unemployment.
Becoming an owner of a small enterprise can be an alternative career choice for young people who have an entrepreneurial mindset and also possess the skills, knowledge and confidence to become a successful young start-up. This is the issue that the upcoming ST’ART youth exchange programme intends to address.
Becoming an owner of a small enterprise can be an alternative career choice for young people who have an entrepreneurial mindset and also possess the skills, knowledge and confidence to become a successful young start-up. This is the issue that the upcoming ST’ART youth exchange programme intends to address.
The ST’ART project is a 7 days youth
exchange programme to be held in
Caltanisetta, Sicily (Italy) next month and will involve 42 young people from a
diversity of EU countries, such as Italy, Lithuania, Romania, The Netherlands,
Latvia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The thematic focus is on traditions in the
field of art and culture and thus the programme will entail an exploration of the possibilities to
develop entrepreneurial initiatives in this field. The exchange programme will offer a creative space for intercultural dialogue among the participants in
order to experiment together how arts education and artistic expression can be
effective in empowering young people and engage them in active citizenship
around heritage issues.
These are the three major objectives for
the youth exchange:
- To share different experiences and practices
in the field of art & culture among young people from different
cultural contexts and backgrounds in the EU.
- To raise awareness among young people of the
potential of artistic and cultural traditions as a catalyst for inclusive
and sustainable growth.
- To foster international entrepreneurial
initiatives focused on the heritage value of traditions in the field of
art and culture.
The project leadership is
in the hands of the Italian organisation PRISM-Promozione Internazionale Sicilia-Mondo, who
initiated this exchange week and involved the following partners: Sirvintu
Meno Mokykla (LT) , Fundatia ACTIVITY (RO), JASMA
(LV), Association "Professional Forum for Education" (BG)
, SAM, Republic of Macedonia (MK) and our School of Social Work at
Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (NL).
By joining this initiative we have paved the way for a small delegation of young people from our social work department to participate in this intercultural and international adventure. They will be joined by our staff member Marianne Lindhout who will also take an active part in the programme by leading a number of activities in the programme.
