EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment commits € 2,3M to boost entrepreneurship among underserved communities

• Young Entrepreneurs Succeed (YES!) will activate 1.600 young people to create & grow their own business.
• Autoocupació joins a trust-based partnership engaging expertise & implementation organizations from 6 EU countries.

With the aim to activate unemployed youth to access the labour market and promote entrepreneurship, the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment has granted a transnational project called Young Entrepreneurs Succeed (YES!) committing €2,3M for the next 3 years.

The EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment seeks to complement existing EU funding on youth employment initiatives contributing €60 million to support transnational initiatives that promote sustainable and quality youth employment.

Young Entrepreneurs Succeed (YES!)  is a trust-based partnership engaging 8 public & private institutions from 6 EU countries with wide experience promoting entrepreneurship among underserved youth. These organizations include regional development agencies, NGOs, universities & consultancies acting as implementation, expertise or dissemination partners. Autoocupació, will develop YES! in Spain.

It is expected that 1.600 NEETs (youth Not in Education, Employment or Training) from Greece, Poland, Italy and Spain will be provided with training, coaching, access to finance and mentoring services to start & grow their own business or to find a job. We still have more than 6 million NEETs in the European Union.

YES! partners will work together gathering evidence on target group needs and existing gaps in service provision, designing & testing new financial and non-financial services for underserved young entrepreneurs. They will also measure and share the project social impact. Once evaluated, these new services will be transferred and scaled globally through the Youth Business International network with members in more than 50 countries.

ABOUT THE EEA AND NORWAY GRANTS

The EEA and Norway Grants represent the contribution of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reducing economic and social disparities and to strengthening bilateral relations with 15 EU countries in Central and Southern Europe and the Baltics.

For the period 2014-2021, the total contribution is €2.8 billion (EEA Grants €1.5 billion and Norway Grants €1.3 billion).

Under the EEA Agreement, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are part of the European internal market. The EEA Agreement sets out the common goal of working together to reduce social and economic disparities.