As the final activity for InDigiSE project SIC conducted three very valuable presentations about ways to foster youth engagement in social entrepreneurship. They took place on 3oth June in Olaine and Riga, and posed some truly beneficial outcomes for the participants as well as SIC as the representative of project consortium.

All three events gathered people working with youth either in formal or non formal settings, and therefore presenting the outcomes of InDigiSE project were very useful for broadening their understanding about the topic as well as interest in implementing the presented methodologies in their work.

The main part of each of the events included a section where the following outcomes were presented:

• guidelines “How to stimulate social entrepreneurship via non-formal and informal learning methods”
• handbook on Social Entrepreneurship Innovation Camp Methodology
• open educational resource Socialenterprisebsr.net

Nonetheless, the events focus and outcomes of the conversations was somewhat different in each of those. Meeting representatives of the Municipality of Olaine it was possible to see the active involvement of youth, but lacking overall knowledge of social entrepreneurship (or interest to be involved in any type of entrepreneurship at all). The meeting in the EU House gathered a more diverse group of people, and therefore conversation leaned towards the outcomes themselves – how to use them more efficiently and how to make youth interested in social entrepreneurship training as a useful skillset development tool in general. And the last, but not least – the meeting in the National Centre for Education of Latvia gave an irreplaceable perspective on the shortcomings of the current formal educational system regarding social entrepreneurship, but even more so – the lack of methodical materials for teachers about this topic.

The most common conclusions from all the meetings are as follows:

• social entrepreneurship should be used more as a tool to develop skills and attitudes of youth
• formal as well as informal education fields lack quality materials for offering efficient education on this topic (or it has not reached the audiences – people working with youth)
• educators in formal education have very little knowledge about social entrepreneurship, and so does youth. Promoting the concept itself would be a great way to promote the involvement of youth!

All in all, the events proved to be a great inspiration for all the participants. Everyone was motivated to look into opportunities that our offered approaches might bring, as well as the potential collaboration opportunities.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

InDigiSE aims at delivery of youth-oriented, innovative educational tools to develop the entrepreneurial competence in the field of social economy and engage youth within social entrepreneurship. It started on April 1st 2020 and will be finalized on 30th June 2022. In this final stage of the project the created outcomes (guidelines, handbook and Youth section of webpage) are brought to the potential beneficiaries, and disseminated across the field of youth work, but very soon the activities will cease and partners will get on to evaluating the great impact of these outcomes.

The publication has been developed under the INDIGISE project funded by Erasmus+ programme. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the views of the European Commission or the National Agency.