SCORE aims at encouraging young people living in rural mountain areas outside Bologna to reinforce their social and professional development and their community awareness. Social and sustainable business ideas will be designed by participants with a guided support on employment, empowerment and a sense of belonging in the local and EU communities. Non-formal methodologies fostering collaborative and experiential learning approaches will be applied.

Rural Appennino area in Emilia-Romagna, Bologna province (ie. Vergato, Porretta Terme)

The Appennino Bolognese is made up of rural villages with less than 10000 inhabitants for each municipality. Local youngsters may drive rural societies to a better social and economic progress approaching sustainability, but they are often isolated given the geographical settings defined by limited access to infrastructures (physical and digital), lack of job opportunities, and limited educational facilities. They need to release their potential in the territory while starting an active participation process in community development.The area is yet located in one of the most innovative Italian regions supporting young people start-ups and promoting self-employability with public and private grants. SCORE represents a bridge to activate youth in this context enlarging their potentials.

SCORE will include at least 30 young people in the selected area who want to acquire new skills through the participation in trainings, sessions and local hubs. We will encourage the participation of youngsters aged 18-25 by including high school and university students and youth not included in formative and social frameworks.
The project counts on the collaboration of local institutions, formative centres, local associations (proloco). The project includes the civil society by disseminating the results through public events and the active promotion of the developed ideas. The main messages would be the promotion of social cohesion, aggregation, green development and EU values. We will involve local associations, public bodies, youth centres, parents, citizens in the rural communities.

SCORE stimulates youth self-employability and active participation in rural areas through formative paths by promoting social-economic and green values. The project is divided in 3 steps through non-formal methods:
1. Training on the following topics: project design, needs analysis, EU non-formal education opportunities, green economy.
2. Local Hubs: meetings to exchange green, social and local products-oriented business ideas with participants.
3. Screening and development: the two most promising business ideas will be developed through a prototype design, product fine-tuning, indicators setting, local network contacts, promotion in the community.
4. The hub with the involvement of the participants promotes the project ideas on the market and it will search for further investors

Young people will challenge themselves in a guided process through a practical approach by raising active participation, empowerment, openness to new opportunities and awareness on their potential to change the society and improve their learning and employability.
The community promotion will be fostered through the activation of innovative ideas, lifting local youth potential, giving visibility to an isolated area, and reinforcing the networking among institutions and civil society promoting co-funded follow-up initiatives. Communities will also experience the EU values feeling closer to EU citizenship.
Awareness on the environment protection and sustainable economy will be reinforced in a blended position launching responsible, social and participative entrepreneurship in rural areas.

In a context where young people are not involved in the decision-making process and are not aware of the active participation sense, SCORE fosters their engagement in positive social change. We will improve their civic competences focusing on the environment field as it represents one of the main issues not only among young people as shown by students’ movements, but also relevant in the EU and regional policy.
Through nonformal tools, young people discover the possibility to activate themselves in a peer-learning approach and shape their community based on their interests and needs. Local communities will be highly impacted by the future generation’s engagement and will advance a more participative structure in defining new initiatives, aspect which is ever more important after Covid.

The project responds to the long-term vision of both the partners to support young people development in personal, professional and social growth by building an inclusive, participative, sustainable and green European Union.
The idea was developed by the organisations after the implementation of different local initiatives with the Appennino Bolognese communities which brought us to analyse specifically the needs of the community with a special attention to young people as future community builders and potential active changers of their paths. After developing the idea, we have discussed it with local stakeholders, activists and young people themselves to further shape the project according to their feedback and needs.

Office expenses: 2000
Local travel: 2000
Personnel and Trainers Costs: 18000
Insurance costs: 1000
Public Relations, visibility and dissemination costs: 4000
Promotion and communication-launching campaigns for selected ideas (online and on-site): 8000
Green idea support costs and hubs: 14000