“Entrepreneurship Education for Cultural Tourism (EECT)” - Training Course

Project number: 2016 – 3 – DK01 – KA205 – 033887

Countries involved: Italy, Spain, Denmark, Romania

Participants: 16

Dates: From 29 November to 7 December 2017

Place: Terranova da Sibari, Italy

Location of the activities: Association Futuro Digitale

Each participant will receive a ”Youthpass” Certificate, to describe and validate the experience and the competences acquired.

If you want more information, download the Infopack

Intercultural Event

Summary

Entrepreneurship Education for Cultural Tourism (EECT) is a Strategic Partnership (SP) of youth associations and NGOs mostly from countries where youth and graduates’ unemployment rates are among the highest of the EU (see Eurostat “Youth unemployment rate – % of active population aged 15-24”). In November 2015, 4.553 million young persons (under 25) were unemployed in the EU28, of whom 3.167 million were in the euro area. In particular, regional youth unemployment rates varied widely across the EU-28 (Eurostat, 2015) and amongst the EECT partner countries, with the lowest rate in the Danish region of Siddanmark (11.4%) and the Romanian region of București-Ilfov (14.6%) while with the highest rates in the Spanish region of Andalucia (56.8%) and the Italian region of Calabria (65.1%), where the partners of the SP have their main office. In these regions and in the countries of the SP, youths focus more on their values on self-development or on the chance to extend their network, in other words, something that could be achieved only through entrepreneurship.

Sharing youth common interests in European cultural tourism (as an important source of employment) and Entrepreneurship Education, we aim to encourage and promote new conditions of a more flexible and globalized labour market, fostering the self-development of youth. Cultural tourism became an issue in times of crisis. The labour market is constantly developing towards this direction, thus there is a strong need to have young professionals involved in the tourism market equipped with new skills and the capacity to offer tourism services with social approach.

The SP follows the principles of the post-2010 Lisbon Strategy and the Renewed Social Agenda as well as the new Strategic Framework for European cooperation in Education and Training, the Employment Guidelines and the Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe. Following the EU Council Resolution on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field, the mission of the SP is to empower young people by promoting their autonomy, entrepreneurship and the potential of them to contribute to a sustainable development of society and to European values and goals.

OBJECTIVES

To offer non-formal education on cultural tourism entrepreneurship to disadvantaged groups. In particular, young people at risk of social exclusion may greatly benefit from this type of training. It can raise the motivation of those who learn best by doing, and who have difficulties in more traditional subjects.
To develop a new training methodology based on the blended mentoring method to foster creative thinking, entrepreneurship thinking competence supporting the matching between young participants’ expectations and the labour market.
To promote learning mobility of young participants.
To Increase employability through not yet wide-spread competences.
To foster inclusive education which combat any kind of discrimination or racism in order to strengthen social ties as well as generate a sense of belonging.
To support young people entrepreneurship inter-alia via entrepreneurship education, support to start-up funds, mentoring programmes, and encourage recognition of junior enterprises.
To support the development of better knowledge about Entrepreneurship Education (specifically applied to cultural tourism) through support to youth research, research networks, specific studies, etc.
To strengthen cooperation with local and regional authorities.
To make effective use and facilitating the access of young people to EU funds and programmes.
To encourage formal education and non-formal learning in support of young people’s innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.

Cultural tourism represents a resource for innovation, creativity, small business creation, and high added value products and services development. The promotion of cultural tourism is a logical next step in developing European Cultural Routes since this type of tourism builds on the uniqueness and authenticity of remote destinations, local knowledge, skills, traditions and heritage. Throughout an achieved international synergy on the use and management of cultural heritage, the SP aim to deliver high quality and innovative tools/courses to promote entrepreneurship and foster the dissemination of the entrepreneurial mind-set among youth. EECT put into practice the theoretical aspects and the approaches of the beginning phase of the project in coaching creative/innovative business ideas. The method will be a blend of job shadowing, designing cultural projects, empowering processes and business model canvas drafting, aiming to take business ideas from the design to the actual establishment.

Target groups are:

Young NEETs (people not in employment, education or training);
Young people with fewer opportunities.