Entrepreneurship plays a key role in addressing the global challenges of the XXI century, contributing to more sustainable development, for the creation of employment opportunities, promoting social value for society, and stimulating the development of local territories. It’s crucial to develop educational strategies for Entrepreneurship, where children’s and youngsters can develop skills, knowledge, and attitudes that allow them to create social and economic value, empowering them with entrepreneurial skills that allow them to act as an agent of social change. Reinforce entrepreneurial education in schools will have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial dynamism of our economies. It is not possible to develop an entrepreneurial school concept if the entire school community is not involved. It is essential to strengthening the profile of the teaching staff and other educational community of skills and knowledge at an entrepreneurial level to enable them to work on this subject in a transversal way in the academic and non-academic context, as well as to contribute for a whole-school strategy that promotes entrepreneurship as an attitude and where each one has the responsibility to act as an agent of social change. This project reached four school communities (more than 1200 participants including students, teachers, and non-teaching staff, administration, and parents) from 4 EU countries, with the objective of cooperating in research, sharing good practices and experiences of action for approaches to entrepreneurship education. But the project went far beyond the school communities and partners that started the project. Today there is a learning community. Today, there is a network of schools that wants to promote a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the school community. The main objectives of the project were:- Collect, organize, understand and compare information about programs, activities, and education initiatives for school entrepreneurship that promote the entrepreneurial spirit in the context of each partner school and respective country;- Research and analyze, through a comparative analysis, various entrepreneurship programs, and initiatives and their impacts on student involvement, reducing early school leaving and the school environment;- Create a Reference Scale for Entrepreneurial Schools;- Develop Strategic Plans, with concrete actions to be implemented by partners;- Stimulate the entrepreneurial attitude of young people, reinforcing attitudes and skills such as motivation, persistence, and commitment; creativity, curiosity, and tolerance for error; confidence; self-efficacy and self-awareness;- Launch a Network of Entrepreneurial Schools Throughout the project's period, the following activities were carried out by the promoters:- After the first partner meeting, the project was launched and formally presented;- Subsequently, and in an initial phase of the project, to better understand the context of each partner and each country, a Local and National Mapping Exercise with practices, experiences, projects, stakeholders were carried out;- A set of indicators that contribute to an entrepreneurial school were identified, a self-assessment tool, that allows each school to have a critical reflection on how to promote an entrepreneurial culture in the school community, was developed;- At the international training course, participants discovered more about what an entrepreneurial school is, and how to promote entrepreneurial skills in the classroom;- More than 400 educators, researchers, entrepreneurs, attended the 3 local seminars and the international conference. events that served to reflect, debate and disseminate knowledge and about the intellectual outputs developed throughout the project;- Strategic local action plans have been developed to contribute to an environment that promotes innovation in the school and, implementation plans with a set of activities and initiatives at the local level, were implemented;- Teachers training and Seminars, local events, students workshops, entrepreneurship and ideas competitions, meetings with stakeholders were developed;- The final Conference (EU level) and the corresponding Conference Paper, made it possible to take the project further, with other partners from other locations and countries;- A booklet was created with practices, projects, and initiatives that promote innovation and entrepreneurship at school;- A dynamic website was created to share the resources developed, projects implemented, and knowledge sharing.

The yearly award of European Youth Capital (EYC) provides title holders with an opportunity to not only present their existing initiatives targeted at youth but also an outstanding and utmost crucial platform to improve their programmes and policies for and by young people on various levels. Whilst locally addressing youth-related aspects, municipalities implement the frameworks of mutual European youth policy goals. Thus improving and strengthening a common European youth agenda as well as creating spaces and opportunities for youth participation and enhancing a sense of European, national and local citizenship. IIt is the goal of the project to facilitate the sharing and exchanging of best practices between Youth Capitals to ensure that whilst the title of European Youth Capital is duly transferred from city to city so are the lessons and knowledge associated with it. The basis considered is that, an awareness of the complementary nature of municipal, national and European levels amongst young people allows for a sustainable implementation and understanding of European policy dimensions. The project is specifically targeted at youth workers, leaders of youth NGOs, practitioners working on youth-related programmes within the municipalities as well as local authority representatives, all as the target group identified to be directly involved in the implementation of EYC related programmes as well as the youth agenda and activities of cities. The following objectives are intended to be met: - The exchange of best practices and lessons learned amongst past, present and future European Youth Capitals;- Identifying and analysing successful approaches and projects developed by past European Youth Capitals in order to understand the structures implemented to achieve this and therefore their applicability in other Youth Capitals;- Capacity building of practitioners within the partner cities to strengthen and ensure outstanding outputs and implementation of activities related to the awarded title of European Youth Capital;- Assessing the impact of and current link between activities locally carried out within the framework of the award and youth programmes at national and European level;- Developing a handbook including the outcomes of the knowledge transfer between the Youth Capitals, showcasing strategies and recommended successful practices that will support future title holding cities in the improvement of the quality of their youth programmes.During the project, a training course, a seminar, conference and the mapping of successful strategies and best practice activities will shape the outcome of a manual of best practices whilst building capacities of participants and partner organisations. These concrete outputs will serve as a support for the improvement of the quality of EYC youth activities and enable efficient achievement of positive and sustainable programmes. Also, municipalities interested in applying for the EYC award, through the documented outcomes of the project, have the opportunity to review methodologies that have proven successful and understand processes that have been optimised by past EYCs. Reducing the hurdle for municipalities to prepare themselves for an application and ensuring that the quality of outcomes continues to improve. The project will have an impact on over 5000 individuals and its outputs (e.g. manual of best practices) on even more. There will be an impact on the awareness amongst young people of the European dimension and its role and home on local level youth policies which will in turn lead to a society of young people aware of the meaning and outcomes of their European citizenship as well as their role at their local level.

Employability Tools is a project that addresses the need of strengthening local work carried out by stakeholders throughout Europe in developing and promoting employability of vulnerable groups, focusing on young people (often with fewer opportunities). This need, felt at a local level, is in line with the major European guidelines. Europe 2020 strategy aims for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, creating the conditions for youth to develop their skills, fulfil their potential, work, and actively participate in society. Successful labor market integration is a key aspect in unleashing young people’s potential and achieving EU2020 objectives, equally as in our direct local & regional needs and interests. OBJECTIVES: (1) To create and develop 4 tools for employability: an App, an educational Board game, an interactive Planner and a Handbook for technical staff working with employability issues; (2) To contribute to the development of the quality of support systems for employability; (3) To increase youngsters disposition towards entrepreneurship, employability opportunities and recognition of personal and professional competences; (4) To foster the cooperation between different entities from different countries in different fields (NGOs, companies, public bodies); (5) To assist youngsters on their development of key competences towards employability using the tools developed, and with better qualified youth workers on that field.PARTNERSHIP: This project brought together NGOs, public bodies and social responsibility companies, who had already cooperated and established a trustworthy relationship in the past. Partners came from Portugal, Belgium and Italy - DNA Cascais, Câmara Municipal de Cascais, Produções Fixe, Vzw Elegast Wijkwerking, Xena and Insight. The fact that Cascais was the European Youth Capital (EYC) in 2018, title awarded by the European Youth Forum, boosted the motivation to carry out this project and deliver results during the EYC year, thus enlarging the potential for visibility, dissemination and creating long term value. ACTIVITIES: between September 2016 and August 2018, the following activities took place: » General project management.» Communication between partners.» Quality checks and evaluation: control meetings, reports, evaluations.» Financial control: expenses report, bank transfers, coordination control. » 4 transnational meetings: Cascais (PT) in December 2016 - kick-off, get to know each other, setting the vision and procedures of the project, work on the outputs; Antwerp (BE) in June 2017 – testing the outputs, evaluating and planning ahead; Padova (IT) in December 2017 – development of the outputs, assess project results and plan adjustments; Cascais (PT) in June 2018 – launching event with Cascais EYC 2018, evaluation, planning dissemination and multiplying events.» Development of the 4 intellectual outputs: concept development, technical development, first prototype / beta production, testing, feedback, improvement, producing final versions of the outputs.» Project dissemination and visibility: creating image, promotional material, online promotion, contact with other stakeholders, press releases, events within Cascais EYC 2018, local presentations. RESULTS AND IMPACT: This project generated 4 “EMPLAY” Tools, Open Educational Resources, which are useful tools for youth workers and employability workers, and are now already increasingly used by NGOs, local schools, social organisations and public organisations. For these, impacts are: increase in the knowledge about employability and entrepreneurship and strategies on how to develop young people’s competences; teamwork, self esteem, communication; a wider knowledge and visibility of E+ program; new views on the use of non formal education; positive attitude towards community building and networking. Young people (and also job seekers, people wishing to change career, etc.) are being targeted through these organisations, while others have been directly targeted by events or workshops developed by partners. Young people worldwide can also take advantage of using EMPLAY tools on their own, particularly due to the fact that some of the partners have extensive networks (e.g. Cité des Metiers or Organisation International de la Francophonie). Connecting this project with the implementation of Cascais EYC 2018 increased its impact at European level. On a LONG TERM perspective, project results will contribute to a more sustainable, socially cohesive Europe, where young people can more successfully integrate in the labour market, fulfilling their potential. There was a clear expressed wish by Portugal's Secretary of State for Employment to disseminate the tools to the wider employability structures, which can bring concrete unforeseen impact. At the moment, consortium received already a request for the production of 20 units of the boardgame Emplay, besides expressed wishes of other youth workers and institutions.

This project was created to promote youth excellence in knowledge, to develop their entrepreneurial competences and the capacity to face societal challenges, along with responsible research, innovation, and critical thinking.The project partners coming from Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Bulgaria were able to maintain a structured bridge between schools, youth associations, government departments, and the business sector, with a focus on including people with different needs and with fewer opportunities in entrepreneurship education programs, due to the richness of their combined resources. A pedagogical proposal about entrepreneurship education was developed and implemented based on a set of tools and best practices developed by each of the partners, which were shared and analyzed during the project with the aim to mainstream them, making them available in a Manual to many other partners around Europe and other regions of the world. In summary, this project mapped inclusive and innovative educational approaches towards entrepreneurial learning, while at the same time focusing on youth and employability. This allowed the project partners to promote the entrepreneurial education of young people and the use of new methodologies to promote educational success and integration into the digital society.Therefore, we believe that our project was in line with the Europe 2020 Strategy and constituted a strong contribution toward the EU Youth Strategy, given that the project specifically contributed to promoting education for entrepreneurship, social and environmental entrepreneurship among young people; as well as to promote youth empowerment by strengthening autonomy and participation, including e-participation, active citizenship of young people, social inclusion of all young people, critical thinking and digital literacy among young people and their sense of initiative, in particular in the social field.The project also contributed to strengthen the transnational cooperation between regions under-represented in the Program, with the Outermost Regions (the Azores and Canaria Island region and rural areas where our international partners are active). Thus, the project achieved the successful creation of a partnership in articulation with different European organizations, establishing a competent, credible and focused consortium in the areas of education for youth entrepreneurship, digital employability and social inclusion.