With a mixture of plenary discussions, group work and prototyping solutions to key challenges related to the topic, the Final Conference of the KA2 Erasmus+ project, Empactpreneuriat, brought together over 45 participants from Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Greece and Portugal in an effort to identify the role of youth work in the attainment of SDGs.
Tackling youth work, education and entrepreneurship, the conference was the perfect scenario for teachers, students, entrepreneurs, youth workers, policy makers and civil society representatives to reflect on solutions to make these three topics more sustainable in the long run, benefiting the youth of tomorrow.
Designed as a collaboration between 4 organizations from France (RESOPA), Estonia (SARA), Greece (Social Hackers Academy) and Romania (GEYC), the project as a whole has been seeking to assess the impact & influence of EU youth (young people and youth work organizations) in the community building process, the attainment of SDGs and overall the creation of sustainable communities through youth participation & entrepreneurship. This has come to life, during the event, through a presentation of the conclusions of one of the project's intellectual outputs, the Impact report on the local level impact of various forms of youth work projects and youth led projects and entrepreneurship in EU.
Some of the proposals of the working groups were:
- developing an online platform where youth will be able to discover different opportunities and develop themselves,
- a more flexible school curriculum, with an equal importance for arts and sports and a recognition of soft skills,
- special grants awarded by local authorities to teachers to incentivize them get more specialized in the field of sustainability,
- raising awareness on the need and importance of professional schools and specializations in order to destigmatize them,
- creating an institute for women entrepreneurs in rural areas in order to empower them.
Here is a video presenting the conference.