Peace Child international, the youth-led organization with over 30 years’ experience empowering the young to make their own change has reached out to organizations from all over Europe in a bid to stem the spread of youth unemployment. Its EU Youth job creation network will draw on experience and knowledge from the UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece’s Innovation Farm.
Uncertainty and doubt about the
future has always been part of the impetus that drives innovation and
achievement. It has rarely been far from most people’s minds but the last few
years have seen a period of renewed intensity. After decades of raised
expectations for many, the roller-coaster is now the big dipper, the
double-dipper, the triple-dip to the point where pundits are running out of
euphemisms. There are few for whom this is more terrifying than our young. The
thought of a future-less generation fills us all with dread.
Peace Child International, a
UK-based organisation that since 1981 has been actively encouraging the young to be the change they want to see in the
world, has focused its resources on youth unemployment in Europe with an
initiative that draws on the experience of organisations from all over Europe.
The delegates, who will meet in February at PCI’s headquarters in
Hertfordshire, aim to alloy their experiences and resources to create an
effective range tools that will help young people create new opportunities and
take full advantage of existing career paths.
One of the participating
organisations, Innovation Farm from
Thessaloniki, Greece, one of the countries hardest hit by recent events in the
Eurozone, has been building bridges between the academic and business sectors
for some time. They are tackling the challenges head-on and have recently
launched a pre-seed Accelerator programme, STAGEONE to give hopeful
entrepreneurs the chance to engage, build and grow their ideas until they are
ready for the market. The participating start-ups are taken through all the
crucial steps of setting up a viable venture by experienced professionals.
Mentors are on hand to help but no-one is wet-nursed, what they achieve must be
earned. At the end of each stage the young companies are appraised and judged
and if they don’t come up to standard, they are out. “Young entrepreneurs need
to fail fast,” say Innovation Farm director, Argyris Spyridis. He went on to
explain, “If the venture has irrevocable flaws, they need to be realised fast
so the team can go back to the drawing board and come back stronger and
smarter.” STAGEONE will be the first of
many such programmes which will see the successful teams become established as
legal companies, registered at the chamber of commerce, ready to take on the
market place. Importantly, though they will be ready to vie for investment,
knowing that they have been through a rigorous process that will make them more
attractive than many of their contemporaries.
It seems that while the situation
in Europe doesn’t seem to be showing any immediate signs of improvement, the
uncertainty and doubts for the future will still be the impetus that drives
change. Peace Child International with its Job creation network allies is
committed to empowering tomorrow’s people to stop waiting for change and start
making it. A new European union is taking shape; it’s young and doesn’t wear a
suit.
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