SALTO-Youth Participation - EuroMed Youth Programme IV

Support measures
DO you
have the
entrepreunarial
spirit
BUREAU
International
Jeunesse
BELGIUM
01.12.2009 — 31.10.2010
30
Like any other national agency, we try
to organize activities which are linked
to the annual priorities of the European
Commission. When preparing our 2009
workplan and training calendar the following
question arose : “What could we
do within the framework of the European
year of creativity and innovation ”
As the Bureau International Jeunesse
had already developed a lot of activities
promoting artistic and creative
youth projects in the past, we came up
with the idea of opening our minds and
discovering the exact meaning of the
often misunderstood word “entrepreneurship”
and to see whether it could
be linked to non formal activities.
Besides the Youth in Action Programme,
the BIJ is running a bilateral
programme with Quebec, the
French –speaking province of Canada.
In Quebec, the expression “entrepreneurial
spirit” has been part
of the current vocabulary for several
years. I remember my colleagues saying
-“They are driving us mad with
their entrepreneurial spirit….”.
In 2007, within the framework of that
programme, the BIJ organised a study
visit for young participants from Quebec.
The aim was to give them an overview
of initiatives developed in Brussels
and Wallonia to promote entrepreneurship.
The preparation and implementation
of this project gave us the opportunity
to discover that several initiatives/
programmes were targeting young people
(even from primary school level).
Our first step was to call representatives
from different governmental
initiatives such as the ASE (Agence de
stimulation économique), and the ABE
(Agence bruxelloise pour l’entreprise)
one of whose roles is to promote the
sense of entrepreneurship in young people
through non formal activities. We
were pleasantly surprised at their positive
reaction. It seemed that our project
was the right one at the right time. The
two Belgian institutions were at that
time discussing how to better reach
young people - one evaluating its initiatives
targeting young people via schools,
the other working together with street
workers on a youth event aimed at promoting
a sense of initiative in young people
living in a deprived area of Brussels.
We quickly came to the conclusion
that it could be valuable to work together
as we apparently had common
objectives. This was very encouraging
as we were rather hesitant. To benefit
from the experience of another type
of organization we also got in touch
with the national French programme
“Envie d’Agir” which supports quite
similar projects to youth initiatives
in the Youth in Action Programme.
They also welcomed our proposal and
our partnership was established. We
had successfully made the first step.
We were well aware that the next
steps were not going to be so easy :
we had to choose the right words
for the call for participants and, of
course, get applications from our target
group : youth workers. We decided
to use the following wording :
D
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,
31
Do you have the entrepreunarial
spirit Don’t be afraid,
it’s not a dirty word !
Help us to break with established
stereotypes : you may think that the
word “entrepreneurial” is only associated
with the economic or business
world. Well, we are convinced that
the economic world and the youth
sector have objectives in common.
Aren’t creativity and a sense of initiative
the most important elements in
your daily work with young people
Close to the deadline, we had only
received a few applications from individuals
looking for help and support to
develop their own projects. At this stage,
we were quite sure that most of the people
who had received the call for participants
had just deleted it, saying “Entrepreneurial
thinking : it’s not for me”.
A second call was necessary as well
as more direct contacts with networks
or resource people in the youth sector.
Another difficulty was encouraging
our colleagues from Quebec and
France to understand that the topic
of the seminar was not the creation
of enterprises but the promotion
of a sense of initiative. After a careful
analysis of applications, we finally
managed to have a group of 16 people
: 5 from Belgium Fr., 5 from France,
2 from Switzerland, 4 from Quebec.
We were ready to go for our 3 day
seminar which we decide to have in
French. We started with a presentation
of initiatives and testimonies from young