Hubs for entrepreneurs from rural areas

Women in the European space are to be encouraged to become business owners, as in the context of women’s business, we noticed a positive trend in regards to the number of women entrepreneurs, mean...

The project aims to address high unemployment rates among rural women by providing support and resources to overcome educational challenges and empower them to become successful entrepreneurs. Our main goal is to develop effective tools and methodologies for entrepreneurship education, benefiting adult education trainers and aspiring female entrepreneurs. We conducted needs assessments, developed a training methodology, an e-learning platform, and a self-assessment guide, all digitally accessible. Throughout the project, we successfully met our objectives, enhancing entrepreneurial skills among adult education trainers and learners through innovative training methods and global best practices. Additionally, we sought to expand digital learning programs for female entrepreneurs, improve entrepreneurship competencies in rural women, and enhance organizational capacity in teaching innovation and business management strategies. Our e-learning platform facilitates the creation of a transnational network of female entrepreneurs and hubs.

As the project aims to provide qualitative educational support for adult education trainers in the field of entrepreneurship, in order to support future female business owners from rural areas, the activities implemented throughout the project focused on developing practical solutions for strategic entrepreneurship teaching, adapted for women from rural areas. All activities were organized in 6 working packages, as follows: (1) Management and coordination - for which the project manager coordinated all activities and ensured the good collaboration of all partners through efficient discussion and problem solving when it was the case; (2) Communication, dissemination and exploitation, which includes - the website and all digital content produced and promoted, 5 multiplier events; (3) Monitoring, evaluation and quality management - including the creation and then the monitoring of the development of the project referring to the initially set indicators; (4) Training Methodology and Self-Assessment Guide - for which the partners collaborated to produce qualitative results, based on best proven global practices; (5) Online platform - which was constantly improved during the project and created to increase accessibility to educational content in the field of entrepreneurship, becoming a sustainable result of the project which will be available to the target group and to anyone interested in improving knowledge; (6) Piloting - through which we were allowed to experiment with the self-assessment, training course and online platform with final users and were able to improve the results, ensuring the quality of the educational materials published. All activities took place exactly as it is written in the project plan. All activities were conducted in order to leverage partners’ diversity of profiles, expertise and cultural background in the way of developing solutions that are accessible and relevant to the target group. Partners were selected according to their relevant experience, as they have either been involved in the implementation of other Erasmus projects, meaning that they have the necessary knowledge and they are either teachers, trainers, involved in learning activities for adults and / or social work. Starting with the management and coordination working package, we ensured throughout the project the good collaboration of partners so that the project’s outputs are available in all partners’ languages and communities, thus making sure qualitative dissemination of project’s results is achievable. Recurrent transnational project meetings were necessary and used to discuss the important aspects of the project, outlining key steps to follow and providing strategic solutions. Then, in order to achieve the project’s objective of increasing skills of adult education trainers and teachers regarding entrepreneurial expertise we organized 4 Learning, Teaching, Training (LTT) sessions, one in each of the partners’ countries, providing cultural background in addition to knowledge related to entrepreneurship strategies, including how to obtain funding, according to each country, how to manage a business and seeing examples of businesses in rural areas, in addition to moments of transnational networking helping the overall development and collaboration throughout the project. Moreover, aiming to create results that are digitally available, highly qualitative and relevant for future female business owners from rural areas, we researched proven best practices in entrepreneurship and used all relevant information to create an e-learning platform, a self-assessment guide and a training methodology, thus every teacher or trainer having access to resources to promote entrepreneurship in their local communities. All results were disseminated through 5 multiplier events, one in each country and an additional one in the project manager’s country, where 200 local participants attended and understood how the project’s results can be used in their communities in order to help support women from rural areas learn entrepreneurship and become business owners and community leaders. Letting the educational resources available digitally, online to anyone interested ensures the good sustainability of the project and a continuous dissemination of intellectual materials.

The concrete outputs and results of the project were the (1) self assessment guide and the training methodology - the entrepreneur handbook, designed to fit the needs of adult education trainers and learners in the field of entrepreneurship, based on learning in a self paced rhythm. These materials are to be used by people all over Europe & the world in general and thus it is important to ensure the quality of learning and accessibility. So, the learning handbook includes instructions for how to use it, how to study by yourself efficiently as it is based on asynchronous learning and all training materials are included in recommended training paths. This handbook is very relevant to the project as it is built in a modular form, allowing anyone interested to have a good learning experience and to use what parts are relevant to them, adjusting the material after it is downloaded and using it as a self assessment tool becoming easier than ever. This material has been realized according to thorough research and based on proven global best practices, as well as using expertise in the field of training innovation, ensuring the elearning solution is engaging for the target group. The methodology supports innovation in training and high effectiveness in what means teaching entrepreneurship, any participants to the training being involved as interactivity is a key point in the published methodology, as well as practical methods of teaching for engaging participants effectively. Materials are made to be easy to understand, written in a simplistic vocabulary so that everything is clear enough in order to create a straightforward training, in a more intuitive way. What is truly special about the handbook is that people from multiple countries worked upon its realization so the information was applied in different cultural contexts, adapted to each country’s necessities and so, having this target group - oriented methodology, we managed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge to local communities and more, and to women of different ages and different professional backgrounds. Easily transferable, the handbook has been created in order to sustain the continuous dissemination of knowledge and to facilitate implementing innovation intro trainings, interactivity, relevant information regarding entrepreneurship, adaptability and adjusting it to the needs of the participants, of female rural entrepreneurs, and to prompt self-development using it the self assessment guide. Another output of the project is the (2) online e-learning platform, where the thoroughly developed outcomes are still available and will remain available after the completion of the project, in a digital environment, accessible to anyone interested in entrepreneurship teaching and learning. Participants, trainers and anyone else can see and download the methodology and results developed during the project, thus ensuring the transferability of results, as well as the sustainability of the project. It only takes a few trainers to use the materials, either participants or beneficiaries of the project to disseminate the opportunity of using these materials in order to improve a teaching experience. The e-learning platform includes interactive sections so that learning becomes more efficient and thus it becomes an example of how the methodology can be applied, as teaching an interactive training, engaging participants, ensures highly effective learning. The platform contains pedagogical materials, learning objects, explanations on the way of teaching and the self assessment tool, so that the results become more attractive to the beneficiary. The platform also provides users with the possibility of approaching in more detail issues related to the project or curiosities in the field of entrepreneurship education, so related to the project’s materials and information provided through contacting the project manager. Interaction with other users and in the case of women -entrepreneurs from rural areas that want to discover more and network is possible then through a specific, open group similar to a forum, where different kinds of issues can be discussed. Another output of the project is the (3) best practice guide, realized based on our pilot testing outcomes and global best practices in entrepreneurship. This document is helping teaching and trainings with guidelines and advice regarding education in this field, alongside practical, useful recommendations, do’s and don’ts of teaching, especially created and adjusted for the target group and easy to use in their own trainings.