YOUTH@WORK: Youth Entrepreneurship CONFERENCE

#YouthAtWorkEU #YECMersin

This cross-sectoral conference will build on the outcomes of the YOUTH@WORK kick off conference zooming on the opportunities and challenges surrounding youth entrepreneurship.

The emphasis of the conference will be on the cooperation between formal and non-formal (youth work) education providers, employment, social & business sectors, (social) entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders. It will showcase achievements, recommendations, good practices as well as future plans inspired by the outcomes of the conference to be taken up by the Youth@Work Partnership.

The conference will be gathering experts with global mindsets ready to make a change in their own communities first. You will be visiting the Young Entrepreneurship Center of Mersin University, which is the newest model in the Turkish entrepreneurial ecosystem, among four centers run by State Universities.

Mersin is located in Çukurova region, which also includes the metropolitan city of Adana.  Çukurova region is considered as an agricultural, logistical and touristic center. The total population of the region is of 4 million people and the youth unemployment rate is around 20%.  On top of youth unemployment, the region also faces some other problems, like the absence of social entrepreneurship, women’s underrepresentation, migration and brain drain. On the other hand, there’s a high potential of young people,  there is also a high percentage of well-educated students due to the presence of 6 universities in the region, a good connection within the region and four-seasons’ weather.

YOUTH@WORK PARTNERSHIP

In 2018, a consortium of 11 Erasmus+Youth in Action National Agencies (NAs), 4 SALTO-YOUTH Resource Centres and the Resource Center for the European Solidarity Corps decided to take a new approach to support employability and entrepreneurship amongst young people and professionals. They, therefore, created  the Youth@Work Strategic Partnership on Youth Employability and Entrepreneurship, with the aim to better address these areas by working collaboratively, based on a common strategy.

Youth@Work is an alliance of the NAs of Turkey (the leading NA), Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Republic of North Macedonia, Spain, and the UK, with the support of the SALTO-YOUTH Eastern Europe and Caucasus (Poland), SALTO-YOUTH Euromed and Good Practices (France), SALTO-YOUTH South East Europe (Slovenia) and SALTO-YOUTH Training and Cooperation (Germany) Resource Centres, as well as the Resource Centre for the European Solidarity Corps. It runs from January 2018 to December 2020, when the Erasmus+ Programme ends.

 OBJECTIVES of the conference:

1.    Create a space for the actors of the youth entrepreneurship ecosystem from various countries from the European Union and Partner neighbouring countries to meet and learn from one another. 

2.    Discover the local context of Turkey and bring innovative solutions to the challenges young entrepreneurs face.

3.    Come up with new collaboration ideas, network, share knowledge and good practices. 

Recommended for:

Young and aspiring (social) entrepreneurs, Youth workers, Trainers, Youth leaders, Youth project managers, Youth policy makers, Youth researchers, Professionals from backgrounds of:● Non-formal education/Youth ●Higher education● Vocational education & training ● Employment support agencies, job centres, job clubs, job coaches etc. ● Employers