This month our two-year project on Cultural and Social Youth Entrepreneurship comes to its conclusion. The CASYE project set out to develop innovative tools to support marginalised young people become entrepreneurs in the social and cultural sectors. This project has taken place in the UK, Belgium, Spain and Italy, and together the partnership have worked together to build capacity of youth workers and other professionals by giving them new approaches to support and strengthen their mentoring practices, improve their skills, and increase the quality of their interventions.
As well as providing mentoring resources for young people and professionals, the CASYE programme has supported the development of a sustainable ecosystem in supporting youth entrepreneurs in the creative European cultural and social sectors through highlighting best practices, connecting like-minded organisations and creating an online ecosystem showing best practices across Europe on our website.
The partnership are delighted with what has been achieved during the last two years. Outputs of the project include:
- Country research reports highlighting best practices across the UK, Belgium, Italy, Spain and other European countries
- Framework for the mentoring programme
- Policy recommendations for national and EU policymakers
- Mentoring handbook for mentors and mentees
One particular highlight of developing the shared ecosystem and capacity of organisations in all four countries was in September 2021, when professionals from the UK, Belgium, Spain and Italy met in Milan for a four-day training programme. We shared examples of best practices, visited a number of examples in Milan and worked collaboratively to create a mentoring framework. On the final day we were joined by around 30 professionals from cooperatives and social enterprises in Italy for a series of co-creation workshops to help us create the mentoring handbook.
As the project draws to a conclusion, CASYE partners were able to showcase best practices and the mentoring handbook at a number of national and international events. An international conference in London brought together young people and professionals from social enterprises, schools, and the cultural and creative industries to discuss the need for these mentoring resources and the challenges facing young people in entering the cultural and creative industries.
National events were also held in Italy, Spain and Belgium, where the CASYE event formed part of the Festival of the New European Bauhaus, and featured an exhibition “Transforming spaces through art and culture”.
The mentoring handbook has been piloted with organisations and young people, and the feedback received has been overwhelmingly positive. We hope that the resource will continue to be useful for mentors and mentees who are taking their first steps into the creative and cultural industries.
