Dear Followers
We are happy to announce that we will participate in a project called Politicians Listening to Us. It is an initiative under Key Action 3 of the Erasmus+ programme based on structured dialogue between young people and policy-makers. The project leader is the Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation from Sevilla. You can find a short description of the project below – if you are interested, send us an e-mail and we will keep you updated!
The emergence of new political parties as alternatives to traditional governance groups is evidence of young people’s readiness to take part in decision-making at local, regional and national administrative level, despite absenteeism in electoral processes. Different social movements working toward change in both East and West have become a vote in favour of alternative policies as a possible solution for an economic and social situation marked by major hardships. Young people’s willingness to engage is paralleled by greater involvement with a view to creating a better world, raising social and environmental awareness and promoting solidarity, thereby fostering social entrepreneurship to counter unemployment and job insecurity. The social economy has proven to be the formula resulting in the lowest jobless rate in recent years throughout Europe and occupies a priority place on the future agenda of European institutions.
The group of PLUS project participants comprises 50 young people from 20 to 30 years old with diverse educational backgrounds. They are clearly committed to dialogue with policy-makers at various levels, thus showing their willingness to achieve consensus to help create a better society for all. Analysis of the steps taken by Eurozone governments and neighbouring Mediterranean countries regarding social enterprise will serve to put forward a series of recommendations while also helping achieve growth of the social economy as an alternative with huge possibilities.
The participants grouped by countries carry out tasks involving research about the social economy to frame the context so that a survey of policy-makers can later be conducted at different levels. All information will be pooled during one week in July 2016 in Seville, Spain, highlighting examples of successful social enterprise initiatives in each country. That work will be accompanied by visits to major local and regional political landmarks such as the Andalusian Parliament and the City Hall of Seville, the capital of Spain’s largest autonomous community, providing an opportunity to converse with decision-makers. They will also meet with internationally-renowned political scientists at Pablo Olavide University. The activities will alternate with references to European instruments, with emphasis on multilingualism and creative thought.
This international meeting will serve to pool information on social enterprise gathered beforehand in order to produce a document of recommendations accompanied by a video, translated into various languages and distributed by available media outlets to reach other young people and especially policy-makers in different countries, including those that did not participate as partners. The work will be presented at major gatherings such as European Youth Week and other forums of interest. Among the benefits is enhanced awareness of social enterprise as a real and possible alternative for young people, here envisaging the creation of jobs through the inclusion of partners from other countries. The participants will continue to actively collaborate in the project’s blog (tresculturas-plus.blogspot.com) with contributions that update and enrich the conclusions on an ongoing basis.