The main objective of YEAP! project is to foster the labor market integration of young people by empowering education and training in order to create their own business and develop their entrepreneurial skills and spirit.

YEAP! project integrates innovation at multiple levels fostering social commitment and entrepreneurial spirit through the development of flexible learning pathways for youth. YEAP! project builds upon the results of CERF project, funded by the European Commission developed an accreditation standard for the acquired key competencies according to European Reference Framework (ERF).

From a qualitative perspective, the YEAP! project will achieve the following results until its end:

• Create a customised programme tailored to youth interested in becoming self-employed or (social) entrepreneurs, on the basis on their own identified needs and barriers, enhancing their entrepreneurial skills and competences.
• Empower youth workers to use the developed YEAP! learning materials and supporting methodology tools and apply the techniques/methods to employed young people.
• Train youth workers in each partner organisation in using the intellectual outcomes of the project.
• Promote entrepreneurship and self-employment by helping young people to remain economically and socially active with the corresponding socioeconomic benefits for the whole society.
• Offer the target group an opportunity of self-employment and self-achievement through lifelong learning.
• Foster cooperation and sharing of teaching, learning and training contents and methodologies, enhancing each partner competences and knowledge in the field of Entrepreneurship.
• Create and discover entrepreneurial opportunities in several economy subsectors (including Social Economy) that will lead to the emergence of new sustainable business start-ups.
• Lead to jointly plan the sustainability of the partnership, nurturing it with new initiatives, including possible spin-off/spin-out ventures and seeking to extend it with new partner institutions.
• Involve and commit relevant stakeholders in the project activities, first, participating in the design and validation of the different products and, lately, in their use and application, as well as offering key solutions and policy recommendations.
• Disseminate project results at European level to promote its future application in other geographical areas. This represents a key objective of YEAP! project, as transferability of the action programme, approach and methodology will be the most effective way to ensure its impact and continuity.

In order to accomplish the above-mentioned results, YEAP! project develops a “Youth Entrepreneurship Advanced Pathway” (YEAP!) promoting entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship among young people to support them in becoming active, creative and entrepreneurial citizens. YEAP! project aspires to play an essential role not only to shape the mind-sets of youth but also to provide knowledge, skills & competences that are crucial to develop an entrepreneurial culture.

The overall project objective is to instill a spirit of (social) entrepreneurship among youth-initiative, confidence, calculated risk-taking, creativity. By placing the young population needs at the center position, the project is developing a set of activities & a variety of methodological approaches to support their integration into the labor market either as self-employed or as entrepreneurs.

The specific objectives of YEAP! Project are to:

• Capitalize on the analysis results on how youth entrepreneurship education needs to be adapted to maximize impact to the operating context of each partner country (Management costs) and to provide a better understanding on how to identify knowledge gaps & training needs.
• Identify and apply elements to formulate an effective customized learning approach as the YEAP! FLEXIBLE LEARNING PATHWAY that can strengthen entrepreneurial quality and motivation of youth.
• Promote high-quality of youth work by developing:

                 i) Guidelines for trainers/youth workers on how to involve youth in an entrepreneurship learning pathway focused on developing entrepreneurial mind-sets

                 ii) Toolbox especially customized to address their needs including practices that enable use of their multiple talents in becoming entrepreneurs

                 iii) Business idea assessment guide for aspiring young entrepreneurs to select & formulate the right type of entrepreneurial activity

                 iv)Open and innovative e-TOOLS to put entrepreneurial ideas into practice, by formulating a sustainable business start-up and/or for building high growth businesses that deliver social & environmental returns