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Description
Islands suffer from high unemployment throughout the year, with a seasonal peak on non-tourist periods, especially amongst young people – this is what this project aims to tackle. We addresses the challenge of unemployment of NEETs between 25-29 years old in islands by creating green jobs in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy sources, sustainable tourism and sustainable mobility.
Furthermore, embracing the Smart Islands Initiative and its principles of bottom-up approaches for innovation in islands, we put transnationality at the core of our project as it recognises the commonalities amongst islands around Europe and understands the potential of exchanging good practices, as well as joint endeavours.
The YENESIS online platform that we have created contains good practices for youth employment shown through numerous success stories. The goal of the platform is to promote innovative practices for employment to the interested parties in order to adopt similar actions towards lowering youth unemployment. The platform is open to both NEETs themselves and investors or other stakeholders. Participants have the opportunity to share business opportunities, find partners, pitch their ideas, and collaborate. The platform will ensure the lasting effect of the project, attracting young professionals and entrepreneurs with similar interests and entrepreneurial ventures.
As part of our project we have also developed the e-course consisting of the 4 main thematic areas of the project. It’s available in 7 languages: English, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Croatian, Estonian and Portuguese.
Summary of project results
The project aimed to tackle the issue of youth unemployment in islands. Specifically it aimed at young unemployed professionals in the area of sustainability.
The activities of the project included:
(a) a research phace in which we studied the current situation in each country and best practices we could utilise,
(b) a learning phase, during which young people from the main target group were trained in issues around sustainability and then had a study trip in the expertise partner''s country and a one-month apprenticeship abroad,
(c) an application phase, during which the participants had a 6-month local placement in a relevant business. We also held workshops with high-school students and teachers/career-advisors as a preventative measure to youth unemployment
(d) a capitalisation phase, during which we informed businesses on the benefits of green jobs and held mutliple meetings and events with relevenat stakeholders (at the national, EU, and UN level) to promote our methodology.
Project results:
227 young people engaged in active job search (see outcome indicators)
117 jobs created (see outcome indicators)
92 young people (direct beneficiaries) have secured a green job (number of people who participated in YENESIS activities and found a job. A fraction of the 117 jobs created, as some are hiries of our beneficiaries who started their own business)
15 new start-ups (direct beneficiaries) (see outcome indicators)
180+ career advisors and teachers educated on green jobs
120+ SMEs and business associations informed on the benefits of green skills
4,144 youth (15-19) have been reached (see target groups)
35,000 general public have been reached (see target groups)
Training material and e-learning in 10 subjects (see deliverables)
Many stakeholders have been engaged, reaching all the way up to the European Commission and the UN ESD committee
2nd place in EU Sustainable Energy Week Awards, Youth Category, 2020
2nd place at the European Network for Innovation for Inclusion Awards 2022
The project results went beyond what we expected. With two european awards and an invitation to present YENESIS as a good practice at a UN Committee, the project has proved itself as a success story for national government to adopt. As the green transition is on its way, YENESIS aimed and manage to tackle at the same time the issues of unemployment and preparing for climate change. The response from local and national actors shows that this was a necessary project for problems faced by our societies.
Summary of bilateral results
The donor project partner elevated the quality of the offeri to the target group. Their insights helped shaped the whole programme and the training on soft skills was a very crucial response to a gap we found during the project implementation. The study trips in the donor country was an unforgetable experience for both the participants and the partners from the beneficiary countries, inspiring many to start their own businesses and take on practices they hadn''t considered before. Aside from the direct benefits, the bilateral collaboration led, also, to higher visibility (a journalist from the donor country visited Cyprus to report on the project). There is high interest for further collaboration so currently LP is at the stage of looking for other sources of funding to continue our work.