AgroBusiness in Urban areaS

While the human toll of the pandemic, a disaster for so many people, keeps increasing many already look at how COVID impacts digital transformation. In 2015, EC published the Final Report of the H...

The AgroBUS project has as objectives: • Objective 1: To contribute to Entrepreneurial education and training to support growth and business creation; (EU, Entrepreneurship Action plan 2020) • Objective 2: To develop training and learning resources for Adult Educators and any other specialist in the field of adult education. • Objective 3: To innovate curricula and learning methods in entrepreneurship. • Objective 4: To build capacities of disadvantages adults to create their own businesses.

The activities of AgroBUS project included: 1. Development of an In-service Training for Adult Educators – Start Up in Urban Agriculture (A Trainer Guide) - a transferable "training program", that can be used for the “blended” teaching valorization of urban agriculture. 2. Development of a A Curriculum for Nascent Agriculture Entrepreneur - the training course will motivate disadvantages adults and will help them to develop their creativity, innovation and entrepreneur skills. It will help them to generate business ideas and develop and implement them. 3. Development of a E-learning Portal, published at the website project. 4. Best Practices VIDEOS that are interviews with useful advice from real entrepreneurs. 5. Development of a EU Urban Farmer strategy toolkit for a new entrepreneur, the set of approaches and methodologies that can be used in Europe to support adults, who would like to start a business in the Urbane Agriculture field. 7. Dissemination activities, including multiplier events with relevant stakeholders, local pilot national workshops for adults with low skills and low qualification and adult educators. 8. Other activities related to Management, Quality Assurance, Evaluation, Exploitation and Sustainability of AgroBUS outcomes. The partnership of AgroBUS project involved 5 public and private organizations in 4 different countries, experienced in social action and inclusive, adult training, employment, social entrepreneurship, innovation and local development.

AgroBUS outputs are mainly addressed to low skilled and low qualified adults and adult educators, but also other organizations are reached by its results. The direct beneficiaries of this project are low skilled, low qualified, unemployed adults, who will boost their motivation, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and transversal skills thanks to the AgroBUS training program. AgroBUS results include: a) tangible results: - Developed training materials (trainer guide + curriculum + e-learning platform + best practices videos + toolkit), translated in all partners native languages. - 1 E-learning Platform available in all project languages (English, Portuguese, Romanian, Greek, Slovenian) - 75 participants trained through AgroBUS Curricula & E-learning Platform and who have developed their creativity and motivation, entrepreneurial skills - 10 adult educators participated in the Train the trainers activity and received a Europass Mobility Certificate. - 10 Best Practices Videos - Over 191 participants at the national piloting sessions (from which 60 adult educators involved in AgroBUS piloting tests) - Over 219 participants (158 live and 61 online) from the local dissemination workshop (low skilled and low qualified adults, specialists, representatives of different stakeholders). - 10 business plans developed by low skilled and low qualified adults - 10 low skilled and low qualified adults participated in the mentoring sessions b) intangible results: - A virtual community build as a feedback from the interested parts (stakeholders / low skilled and low qualified adults) + a variety of best practices identify on local/national communitites (from informal groups that coordinate a communitary orchard to small family gardens and public services offered for small urban farmers) - Acquisition of new competencies for the target groups and gaining of individual experience for organizational staff: the ability to work in a European context on the field of urban agriculture. - a number of 59 relevant stakeholders (chambers of commerce, business associations, labor employment services, education policy-makers, career guidance services, other NGOs and Adult Centers, business incubators, trade unions, etc.) directly received from AgroBUS tailored products of great interest for them, to help them accomplish their objectives. AgroBUS increased quality in Adult Education by teaching updated skills, adapted to the labor market requirements. - AgroBUS learning materials provided a unique combination of skills and motivation from a multidisciplinary perspective that enabled low skills and low qualified adults to become 100% ready to start an entrepreneur experience and fully integrate into the labor market and the society. They not only gained experience in the process of business creation, but they acquired skills they will use during their whole life and the international perspective of AgroBUS will contribute to increase the community sustainability. - Until 31.12.2023: • AgroBus Facebook page had 199 members, 248 followers, 73 posts, 80 shares of the post, 2050 page views/visits, and it reached 5992 users reach. • AgroBus web page had 5097 Unique Visitors, Visitors navigated through a total of 80,715 pages on the website, showcasing the extent of engagement with the content. The website accumulated a total of 138,924 hits, representing interactions with various resources on the site; • AgroBus platform had 75 accounts created and 1933 Unique Visitors. • Youtube Channel: 16 subscribers, 14 videos, 951 views.