30th of April – 06 of May 2018
Poronin, Poland
Youth Exchange
‘Start it up – Young Entrepreneur’, a 7-days Youth Exchange was organized by Stowarzyszenie Inicjatyw Regionalnych “SIR” (Regional Initiatives Association) and funded by Erasmus+. This project took place in Poronin, Poland between 30.04.-06.05.2018. The participating countries were Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The main aim of this program was to learn about the high level of unemployment among the youth in Europe as well as how to react to the mismatch between formal education and the needs on the labour market.
The main goals of the project were to build the knowledge about Start-up trends on the European labour market. That includes the development of knowledge and skills needed to set up a business, requesting the funds for setting up and maintaining start-ups, building the sense of economical unity in Europe, balancing economical situation in Europe, generating ideas and inspirations for businesses, creating a space for business networking, empowering people with difficulties on the labour market to be active as entrepreneurs, promoting Erasmus Plus and “Erasmus for Entrepreneurs” as well as the results of the exchange on the local, regional, national and European level.
Since day 1 we participated in activities that included bonding with all the members and getting to know each participant personally through welcome dinner and integration evenings. Both the environment but also the training was promoting teamwork and cooperation.
Divided into groups of two we had to brainstorm an entrepreneurial idea and present it. Later on, all the participants together had a short presentations and discussion and voted the best 8 ideas presented. In our everyday workshops we learned how to do analytical work (SWOT, Market research, business plan). Also, various methods of work such as: role plays, working with multimedia (movies, photos, social media), interviews, working with graphics, argumentation, discussion, national evenings were implemented. This all gave us some practical skills that we can use for our own future career and personal development. Each day we formed different teams to work on the ideas which gave us the chance to learn how to set our own business.
Each day ended with a sum-up, discussion sessions a national day presentation where each country presented something about their country and an after party night including traditional drinks and music.
At the end, words could not describe the feelings we experienced. It was a truly amazing experience, meeting all these people from all over the world and been to that project gave us some wonderful memories and stories to tell. In the question ‘If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?’’ the answer would be definitely add more days.
