The Imprenditori di Idee project (IDI) is an Erasmus+ Youth Exchange that brought together 30 participants from Italy Romania, Slovenia, Poland and Macedonia to Tusa for 7 days in September 2017, coordinated by New Horizons.
The project theme is social entrepreneurship among youth to develop the local territory and will involve the young people in debates around the topic of entrepreunership and traditional industries in the area, specifically: new formes of agricultural business, historical blacksmith enterprises, a successful hospitalty structure. Through those workshops, young participants could draw some first conclusions on start-up challenges and identify common solutions to encourage cohesive territorial development as a tribute to local businesses that hosted them.
The project took place in Tusa (ME) a small ancient town of about 3,000 inhabitants situated between the two most important Sicilian cities (90 km East of Palermo and 140 km West of Messina), yet is facing accelerated depopulation and isolation.
For a week, the participants had a chance to look at the matter in question from different angles following three well-defined phases.
The first two days were dedicated to in-house workshops and learning sessions as to prepare the knowledge and brainstorming base for participants. The next three days involved 05 field trips and study visits to analyze the local territory and witness what local businesses are doing. In particular, they got to visit three successful businesses: an organic agricultural firm, a historical blacksmith enterprise, and a successful hospitality structure. For the last two days, participants provided their opinions and feedback on the three businesses studied, as well as suggestions for local development.
Concretely, the Youth Exchange and the project in general had the following Objectives:
– To improve key competences and self-esteem among young people;
– To stimulate ideas for community development models basing on traditional resources and new dynamic elements;
– To encourage social entrepreneurial spirit and competences;
– To increase mobility among young people from less developed areas through Erasmus+.
RESULTS
– Promotional materials and Facebook group page,
– Learning materials and developed ideas,
– Reports to the enterprises visited and development suggestions for Tusa.
