You Are Star - Youth Exchange in Spain and Finland

You Are Star is an international youth exchange where youngsters' skills and ideas can shine. Youth exchange is funded by European Union Erasmus plus Youth in Action programme. In Finland, the National Agency for Education is responsible for the management and implementation of the Erasmus + program. For more information visit the National Agency's website.

Activities

You Are Star  consists of two international youth exchanges one in Spain 21.2.-27.2.2020 and the other in Finland 22.6.-26.6.2020. The theme for the exchange is sustainable youth entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial actions can be anything from realizing your own ideas regarding a youth event or trying out your own business.

The activities include non-formal entrepreneur education workshops with themes ranging from sustainability to marketing, budgeting, planning and team work , business visits and meetings with young entrepreneurs. Exchanges also include information from different organizations who support young with business or other ideas and provide funding and guiding. Most importantly both exchanges include entrepreneurial activities carried out by the participating youth. In Spain youngsters will get to experience and learn in a non-formal way about the main characteristics of an entrepreneur, carry out simulations were they will have to develop their own products and ideas and meet local entrepreneurs who will share their experiences. During the last day they will also have the chance to launch a small scale business idea under a controlled environment in the local community, giving them the chance to live a real entrepreneurship experience.

To build up from this experiences, in Finland participants plan and organize a pop up business day that is open for the public. Pop up businesses are running only for one day and they can be about the interests and skills the participants have. They can for example be a international pop up cafe, where youngsters bake Spanish and Finnish treats or they can be workshop were participants teach visitors crafts and culture from their home country. This event is open for the whole community.

To get to know the countries and the culture we plan to have visits in both of the cities Burgos and Kauhajoki, to see sight and eat out at a local place. We are getting introduced to each other hobbies and have international evenings with music, food and games from both countries.

The youth team

The participants in the national groups from Spain and Finland are young people aged 15 -18 years. Common for the project participants is that they are interested about sustainable youth entrepreneurship. Their interest to entrepreneurship ranges from having their own hobby businesses to having parents or other relatives who are entrepreneurs to simply being curious about it. They also wish to find out different ways young people can pursue and get support for their own entrepreneurial or other activity ideas.  In the Finnish group there are participants from schools in rural cities of Kauhajoki and Teuva. In the Spanish group the youngsters come from different towns and cities of the region of Castilla y León. Both groups consist of 8 youngsters. All together 16 youngsters will participate the exchange.

Impact

We hope this project gives participants a newly found self-confidence to believe in their own ideas and projects, and the inspiration and courage to carry them out. We expect that this project helps youngsters learn about real entrepreneurial skills like business planning, marketing, budgeting and group work.
 

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