TC Mindful / Female Entrepreneurs
This is a Key Action 1 Erasmus + Youth.
The project was carried out in Puente Genil, Spain from March 8 until 14, 2023.
Representatives from Croatia, Estonia, Romania, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic,
Turkey and Greece spent an incredible experience researching, learning and understanding
the role of women in entrepreneurship.
To see the results of the project, click on the button below:
Activities
Day 1
Participants were welcomed to Puente Gentil and had dinner together.
The MFE project aims to combine entrepreneurship education and mindfulness practices in order to create and implement a training activity designed specifically for youth workers that will allow them to acquire the skills and competencies necessary to educate girls and women in their community towards entrepreneurship.
Objectives of the project is to:
1. Improve the competencies of youth workers in order to support their motivation and ability to implement innovative youth work, as well as to improve their employment opportunities. - boost both social skills and entrepreneurial skills of youth workers.2. Provide youth workers with creative and innovative training plans, as well as new tools and methods for delivering non-formal education on entrepreneurship to girls and young women.
3. Increase the ability to trigger changes in terms of modernization of youth work by improving the international cooperation of the consortium.
4. Encourage entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship and meditation through mindfulness. The activities of the project, based on the principles of non-formal education, include the creation of teams, simulations, debates, work groups, evaluation sessions, performances and visits, as well as reflection for the development of Youthpass and various workshops based on the principle of learning by doing.
Day 2
The workshops started with the trainers asking the participants to sit in their chairs. They put 2 dices on the table in the middle of the room and an enclosed envelope. The envelope contained pieces of a puzzle. Trainers instructed the participants to open the envelope and solve a puzzle. When the participants solved the puzzle, they saw that the puzzle contained instructions and a list of 11 numbered tasks for the group. The instructions provided the participants with objectives of the activity, as well as with a detailed description of their task: “This is a list of 11 tasks for group building activities:
1. Create a song for the TC2. How old is the group
3. Make a group photo
4. Write the word social entrepreneurship in 10 languages
5. Prepare a motivational dance
6. Create a group hashtag
7. Create a logo for the group.
8. Create group flag
9. Define a list of at least 3 points of common interest
10. Define group’s talents
11. Draw group mascot
Then, they presented their results in the plenary and trainers will moderate the presentation by asking questions, such as: Who was the team leader? Who contributed the most? Who saved the task? What was the hardest task? How did you decide who is in charge of which task? How did you feel about this activity? Is there something you would do differently?
Day 3
The trainers started a discussion on the situation of women in business. They provided data on the business situation of Spanish women and statistics of those who are self-employed, as well as information from Eurostat was presented. After the end of this part, groups of eight people were formed, so that each group could meet and present information about women entrepreneurs in their country.
All participants were given a set time to collect the necessary information. Finally, a discussion took place, in which all groups could share the information collected with the other participants and check the similarities and differences with other countries. The methods used in this activity was Input from trainers, discussion, presentations, sharing of information among participants and trainers. On the other hand, the competences acquired by the participants were:
1. Understanding the importance of developing the strategic thinking of young people in the framework of gender equality and entrepreneurship2. Comprehending various examples of successful women entrepreneurs
3. Learning how women entrepreneurs overcame obstacles in business (beneficial for youth workers work with young girls and women)
Day 4
Each group of participants (groups per country (8 groups total)) presented the situation on women entrepreneurship in their countries and share good examples on successful women entrepreneurs. Also, after an explanation about the purpose of the strategic planning process, participants were introduced to the SWOT method by providing them with information about strengths and weaknesses as internal factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats as external factors of the organization. Participants were then given 4 minutes each to come up with their own individual strength, weakness, opportunity and threat. They were then invited to spend 1 minute and choose 1 person from the group to share their SWOT with. Trainers started a discussion with questions as a:
1.Why does a company need to plan strategically?2. What is the difference between internal and external factors in SWOT analysis?
3. Can we overcome the threats with our strengths?
4. Can we use the opportunities to overcome our weaknesses?
Day 5
This activity was called "Tools for entrepreneurs" and took place from 15:30 to 17:00. the objectives pursued by this activity were:
1. Participants will familiarize with life size board game method through which they will learn about entrepreneurship skills (EntreComp competences)2. To learn about and characterize key entrepreneurship skills
3. To understand which skills are necessary for Young entrepreneurs
4. To gain insight on a new method and tool (games) for youth work
5. To develop entrepreneurship skills in participants
6. To work in team in order to solve problems and créate value
7. To asses own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to teamwork 8. To bond the group.
In this activity, participants had to form groups of about five people to play a board game in which they themselves were the counters. The trainers explained that each stop they made in each square represented an entrepreneurial skill and they had to complete a task in order to acquire that skill. All teams had to complete the nine tasks given to them within a set time.
Day 6
The day started with the mindfulness session. Subsequently, we have started with the first session of the day: Where are we going? , where we have exchanged the experiences during the Training Course, as well as experiences that each one has had in their respective locality, questioning ourselves how to apply what we have learned to our daily routine.
The objective has been to learn to develop project ideas, encourage teamwork and create action plans for the future, as well as form alliances with the rest of the participants and undertake new projects in the field of Erasmus+. After this session, Innovative Initiatives took place, whose objectives are to learn how to develop project ideas, become familiar with the use of Open Space Technology and learn how to present ideas for future projects.
Together with this session, we also began the farewell day, which has been the most emotional part of today. We have written individual messages that we will surely carry in our memories, as well as reminding ourselves of how important each one of us has been to the formation of the group.