Open to reuse
This project is a toolbox
The workshops documented in this site and the document system that supported the project are freely available for other organisations to adapt and reuse. If you are planning a youth exchange on entrepreneurship or a similar topic, you are welcome to draw from our workshop designs, our master link document structure, and our approach to dissemination planning.
Project
Full title
Future Entrepreneurs
Programme
Erasmus+ KA152 — Youth Exchanges
Host organisation
interEST NGO, Estonia
Dates
22–28 August 2025 — 7 full days
Venue
Jõulumäe Recreational Sports Centre, Pärnumaa, Estonia
Participants
60 total — 8 youth and 2 group leaders per country
Age range
13–17 years old
Topics
Entrepreneurship education · Community development · Youth competitiveness
Partners
Estonia (host)
interEST NGO — participants from summer camps and public applicants, ages 13–17
Hungary
Közgazdasági Politechnikum Alternatív Gimnázium — Budapest gymnasium, ages 16–17
Bulgaria
Community for Democratic Education — Sofia democratic school, ages 15–16
Spain
Asociación Las Niñas del Tul, Granada — youth from Málaga and Barcelona areas, mainly ages 15–16
Latvia
New East — Rēzekne gymnasium, ages 17
Finland
Keuropa — Finnish scouts organisation, ages 13–14
Project goals
International communication
Promote intercultural understanding through teamwork and cultural programme, fostering cooperation opportunities and idea exchange
Active participation
Strengthen young people's active participation in civil society and their sense of responsibility for their community's wellbeing
Entrepreneurship
Develop young people's initiative and courage to start their own projects and take responsibility for their future
Local impact
Contribute to improving the local living environment through active youth involvement and initiative
Erasmus+ awareness
Introduce the opportunities of the Erasmus+ programme to young participants
8 key competences
Develop the EU key competences framework and help participants recognise their own learning and personal development
Measurable targets set in application
Business model
At least 90% of participants produce an initial business model or community initiative plan in groups of four during the exchange
Confidence
90% of participants feel greater confidence about realising their entrepreneurial ideas after the project, assessed by pre/post self-evaluation
Follow-up action
5 of 6 country groups carried out a dissemination initiative at home — Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, and Estonia all completed activities. Finland did not deliver.
Challenges discussed by country
FinlandMental health & wellbeing, alcohol dependency
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Mental health and wellbeing — Rising rates of depression and anxiety among young people, with limited access to timely psychological support and significant variation in service availability across regions.
Alcohol dependency — Widespread cultural normalisation of heavy alcohol consumption, contributing to public health burdens, family instability, and long-term economic costs.
EstoniaElderly loneliness, deforestation, healthcare wages
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Social isolation among elderly people — A significant portion of older adults, particularly in rural areas, experience chronic loneliness due to depopulation, limited mobility, and reduced community infrastructure.
Deforestation and biodiversity loss — Intensive logging practices threaten old-growth forest ecosystems, with consequences for carbon absorption, wildlife habitats, and long-term environmental sustainability.
Underpaid healthcare professionals — Persistent wage gaps in the public health sector drive skilled professionals abroad or into private practice, limiting the quality and availability of public healthcare.
BulgariaSystemic corruption, decline of small businesses
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Systemic corruption — Widespread corruption in public institutions erodes trust in government, distorts markets, and discourages foreign investment and civic participation.
Decline of small and local businesses — Independent businesses face increasing pressure from large chains and economic instability, contributing to the homogenisation of local economies and the loss of community-rooted commerce.
LatviaUnderdeveloped tourism, low life expectancy, declining birth rates
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Underdeveloped tourism sector — Despite significant cultural and natural assets, Latvia attracts relatively few international visitors, limiting economic diversification in regions outside Riga.
Low life expectancy — Latvia has one of the lowest life expectancies in the EU, driven by lifestyle factors, limited preventive healthcare, and socioeconomic inequality.
Declining birth rates — A long-term demographic decline, compounded by emigration of working-age adults, poses structural challenges for labour markets, pension systems, and rural community sustainability.
HungaryPublic healthcare, institutional corruption, homelessness
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Deteriorating public healthcare — Chronic underfunding, staff shortages, and long waiting times have significantly reduced the quality of public health services, pushing patients towards informal payments or private alternatives.
Institutional corruption — Corruption affecting public procurement, judiciary, and media independence undermines rule of law and weakens democratic accountability.
Homelessness and housing insecurity — Growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness, particularly in urban centres, amid insufficient social housing provision and a restrictive legal environment for rough sleeping.
SpainOvertourism, housing unaffordability, doctor shortages
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Overtourism — Mass tourism in coastal cities and heritage sites creates environmental strain, disrupts local life, and generates political tension between economic dependency and resident quality of life.
Housing unaffordability driven by tourism — Short-term rental platforms and tourist demand have inflated housing costs in popular destinations, pushing local residents and young people out of city centres.
Shortage of medical professionals — Rural and semi-urban areas face significant gaps in doctor availability, a consequence of uneven geographic distribution of graduates and insufficient incentives for rural practice.
What we learned
Group leader relationships matter most
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The single strongest predictor of participant engagement and post-project follow-through was whether the group leader already knew their participants before the project. Groups assembled through an open public call consistently showed lower cohesion and weaker dissemination outcomes than groups led by teachers or youth workers with an existing relationship with their young people. We will prioritise this in all future projects.
Narrowing the age range to 14–17
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The 13–17 range proved too wide in practice. The gap in maturity, language confidence, and ability to engage with abstract entrepreneurship concepts between a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old is significant enough to create uneven group dynamics. Future projects will target 14–17.
Set volunteer roles before arrival
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Assigning specific helper roles to participants and group leaders in advance — decorators, game masters, firestarters, film producer, DJ, and others — removed a large number of coordination decisions from the organiser during the event itself. The blog post noted this directly: pre-assigning roles made the exchange run substantially more smoothly than it would have otherwise.
Less workshops, more free time
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The final evaluation was unambiguous: participants wanted more free time and fewer workshops. This is worth taking seriously when designing the programme — the connections formed during unstructured time are part of the value, not a break from it.
Keep the uncomfortable moments mandatory
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On day 5, participants were told that the following day they would pitch their ideas to real local entrepreneurs and a public speaking club in Pärnu. They expressed discomfort and asked for it to be voluntary. The organiser held firm with small concessions. Afterwards, participants left with greater confidence and the meeting was remembered only with positive words. The blog post reflects: life can be uncomfortable, and public speaking usually is — but development happens through practice.
Build on shared outputs across workshops
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Multiple workshops independently asked groups to generate new business ideas, which felt repetitive by day 5. A better approach is to design workshops as a chain: ideas generated on day 2 get marketed on day 3, pitched on day 4, and stress-tested on day 5. Mixed international teams formed early in the project can carry through multiple sessions rather than being reshuffled each time. Reusing teams and outputs across workshops creates continuity and lets participants go deeper rather than starting from scratch every session.