Could you change your life and become an entrepreneur? European School of Entrepreneurship is encouraging young people to do it!
“Youth unemployment is growing.”, “Youth employment crisis.” , “The lost generation.”…
These are the titles that appear in the headlines more and more often. Nowadays the young generation, especially the fresh graduates, have to face the big problem of unemployment. Everybody tries to find the best solution to the problem. One of these solutions is starting your own business. Combining initiative, good ideas, courage, determination and an open-minded attitude can be transformed to the best medicine for unemployment. Many young people are thinking about becoming their own bosses but there is still a difference between thinking about it and being active about it: they need to catch the wind and just do it.
AEGEE’s Youth UnEmployment project team is looking for the best tools to encourage young people to take the first step. Designed for young people with fresh ideas for businesses, we present the European School of Entrepreneurship – a non-formal education course.
Between October 1st and 8th, 2012, the second edition of the European School of Entrepreneurship 
(ESE), ESE Green Business, took place in Santander. Nineteen motivated Europeans from Poland, Italy, Turkey, Spain, UK, Czech, Hungary, and Greece took part in it.
ESE started with a nice surprise from the host, AEGEE-Santander, as they had prepared a warm welcome for everybody in the Magdalena Palace. This royal palace was the perfect place for a meeting with a city council representative and trying the Spanish treats. The whole training took place at the University of Cantabria, which became a second home for attendees for a few days of intensive course.
The training included full days of workshops, case studies and practical sessions. Participants received information about sustainable businesses, marketing, creating a business plan, fundraising, corporate social responsibility, time management, presentation and negotiation skills. As future entrepreneurs, the participants worked on creating something of their own and transformed their ideas into five green business plans.
The ESE would not exist without experienced trainers : Magdalena Pawłowska, Piotr Podlaś and Mathieu Soete. Magda and Piotr run their own companies and thus the practical knowledge they shared was highly valued. All trainers willingly answered all questions and gave participants a lot of advice.
However, European School of Entrepreneurship is not only about workshops and study sessions. It is about something more – people. It is a great opportunity for sharing experiences, inspiring each other and spending time in a multicultural environment. It was visible that everybody enjoyed their time participating in this very productive and interesting event. Hopefully, the spirit of ESE will inspire and motivate everyone involved in ESE to take action and be the entrepreneur they want to be.
It is in our own hands to prove that we are not a lost generation.
Written by Beata Rainko, Junior ESE Manager Youth UnEmployment Project & Iina Lietzén, Public Relations Responsible Youth UnEmployment Project.