053 – Rural Action for Innovative and Sustainable Entrepreneurship for Youth (RAISE Youth)

The objective of RAISE Youth project is to build a transnational entrepreneurial network that facilitates NEETs to see needs/opportunities within their own community that can be developed into new businesses and jobs. The project targets young people in 4 EU countries – Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Spain – that are experiencing unemployment as their biggest problem because it directly affects the possibility of their independence, future planning, building their own skills and abilities. We focus on the NEETs population in rural areas of the target countries with the special focus on those aged 25-29 from rural and suburban areas, women and Roma. We contribute to providing decent and productive work for youth by piloting and promoting an innovative RAISE Model of (self)employment. Since the start of the implementation, we reached almost 5,000 NEETs. More than 20% of them were enrolled in some kind of training or mentoring program provided on-line, on the field or in one of our newly opened DEMO Centers. Through the project, 960 former NEETs are already enrolled in education and training, including work-based learning, while 115 former NEETs enrolled in apprenticeships and/or mobility schemes. The total of 117 NEETs included in the program have been (self)employed and 52 of them are in the process of starting their own businesses. For the past, current and future project beneficiaries 4 DEMO Centers have been established in Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Spain as training, demonstration and production centres.

Target groups:

• 2000 primarily rural 25-29 year olds not in employment, education or training
• Women and Roma
• Non-traditional employers and sectors

9 Project Partners: