Currently I’m doing my experience as a young entrepreneur in FuturoDigitale, in Italy. FuturoDigitale is a non-profit organisation focused on the promotion of the local development through the Digital culture, European citizenship and social projects. Their office is located in Terranova da Sibari, a small village on the South of Italy, being the main reason of the location to encourage at youngsters of the area to take part in diverse international initiatives for develop their skills. The action of FuturoDigitale is very necessary in the region, due to the lack of opportunities that suffer people from the area.
The team who form part of FuturoDigitale is interdisciplinary, due to each member belongs to a different field, which enriches the action of the association.
My main task on the association is to obtain experience in the field of European Projects, working on them before, during and after the implementation of the trainings. Since the beginning of the experience I read about the Erasmus + Program, to know the objectives, the actions and the diverse initiatives in each key action. Considering that
one of my objectives is to create and to implement activities for disadvantaged and unemployed people of the area, I am focused on the Key Action 1, specifically on training courses and exchanges for young people and youth workers.
After read about the Erasmus + Program, I have continued learning about the projects searching on internet the application form and some examples, to understand better each part of the training, the objectives, the activities… When I had the base about the mechanism, I searched about the principal problems that affect at young
people in Italy, especially at youngsters in the south of the country. The coordinator in the association has monitored me during the whole process, and he gave me some advices about the topic of which I had to write, being the theme of my training the entrepreneurship in rural areas. I wrote the whole training, attending to the advices of the coordinator and improving the sections under his supervision.
Due to the fact that for understand better the mechanism of the European Projects it is not enough only to read about them, FuturoDigitale offered me to take part in some projects as a participant, and in other ones as part of the staff. They considered essential to experiment the whole process, since the beginning until the end, being as the writer as a participant in some trainings. For this reason I participated in two projects, targeted in the Key Action 2 of the Erasmus + Program, and in a training course in the Key Action 1, all of them focus on the field of youth. Thanks to that experience I could experience the real action in the European Programs.
The first experience as a participant was in a Seminar in France called “Youth Unemployment and EVS” in Nancy, at the north of the country. During the seminar, the representatives of the organizations focused on the youth field explained the different actions that they carry out to help young people in their professional life. Also we worked on diverse activities to avoid the increase of youth unemployment, sharing the different point of view of each country.
The second experience abroad as a participant was in a Training Program named “Global Innovative Leadership Module” in Patras, Greece. The topic of the training was the entrepreneurship in the youth field, giving us the basis of marketing, business models, market analysis, the required budget to carry out a startup, different roles in a
company… The methodology used there was the non-formal learning, so all the activities were dynamic and we learned each other amongst discussing and sharing our ideas.
The third time I took part in an Erasmus project was as a part of the staff in a Training Course called “Manager of Your Own Destiny” in Rosano, a village close to the place where I stay in Italy. The training worked on the entrepreneurship as a solution to avoid the youth unemployment and as way to encourage youngster to deal with their professional life. The main objective was to provide a group of youth leaders and members of organizations active in the youth field, tools, approaches and techniques for developing and supporting youth entrepreneurship as well as skills and abilities related to it.
During the participation in all the projects I took some notes about the organization, the dynamics and the objectives of each activity. But, the aspect I can emphasize more about my experience is the inspiration for write my project, being the base my own experience on the trainings. I consider that participate on them helped me,
also, for know which aspect are good and which ones are better to change it for improve the quality of the training.
My experience in FuturoDigitale is not only focused on international actions, also I collaborate in local activities with the objective of promote the digital knowledge and the European culture in the area. At my arrival to Italy I participated in two local events celebrated in Terranova da Sibari. The first one was a language exchange named
“Let’s start to talk”, where all the Erasmus Students taken part on it, being the objective to encourage at youngsters from the village to learn and practice English with us
The second event was “Cibo, cultura, cinema e… Curiosità Erasmus”, an event focused on the culture about the countries where the Erasmus Students come from.
Also the association participated in the CodeWeek in October, an event about the computer programming focused on children and young people, being the objective to approach to that target group the opportunity to start programming. FuturoDigitale collaborate actively in the CodeWeek taking to the schools of the area some activities
related with the digital culture. I participated as part of the staff, organizing the dynamics for the kids and helping them during the event.
What I could say more about my experience in FuturoDigitale is that I am learning too much in all possible aspects, due to I feel as I am growing up in a personal and a professional way.
