Empowering Culture Through Bussiness – Index About the project Kick-off meeting 1st Transnational meeting

The project “Empowering Culture through Business: Introducing Business Academies for Culture and Creative Young Professionals in rural and remote areas” is funded under Key Action 2 of the Erasmus+ Programme and aims at the development and enhancement of the skills of Culture and Creative Young Professionals (CCYPs) living and working in rural and remote areas.

 

To achieve the goal of the project, the consortium will establish Business Academies aimed at educating young people through innovative training programmes with the involvement of specialists and professionals from the business and cultural sector.

 

The culmination of the efforts of the partners under this project, will be the creation and development, in a sustainable manner, of a prototype HUB in a remote, non-urban area in the Nicosia district. The HUB will provide the necessary support to young people for their professional development and especially access to funding tools in order to support their work. The creation of the original HUB and its sustainable development guide, aim to be a remarkable tool of development policy for local authorities and a best practice for remote communities.

 

The project started in January 2022 and it will be implemented until July 2024 with a total budget of € 207 445. The consortium comprises of 6 partners: the Nicosia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (coordinator), the European Office of Cyprus, Matera Hub in Italy, Danmar Computers from Poland, the Company of Research, Education, Innovation and Development of the North Aegean Region (ELORIS S.A.) and the training consulting company Catro in Bulgaria.

More information can be found on the website of the project: https://empoweringculture.business/.   

The kick-off meeting of the project took place on 28 January 2022. Due to restrictions because of the pandemic, the partners of the project met online.

 

At first, the coordinator of the project, the Nicosia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), welcomed the partners and then each of them presented their organisations and core activities.

 

Later on, the coordinator presented the project objectives and the key results and milestones. Then, partners discussed the Intellectual Output 1 (IO1) of the project which is aims at finding the employability challenges faced by the Culture and Creative Young Professionals in rural or remote areas in each one of the participating countries through the use of surveys and desk research and then producing a consolidated report with the state of the art. 

 

At this point the partners discussed each activity that has to be undertaken under IO1 and defined the role of each of the partners under each activity.  Afterwards, the coordinator presented the reporting templates to be used by the partners so as to ensure the smooth development of the project.

 

Finally, the partner responsible for the Dissemination activities of the project, the European Office of Cyprus, presented some options for the project’s logo for which the partners had to vote which one was their preferred one and the Communication and Dissemination plan of the project was presented. 

The partners of the project met physically for the first time in the project’s first transnational meeting in the island of Lesbos in Greece. The meeting was hosted by the Company of Research, Education, Innovation and Development of the North Aegean Region (ELORIS S.A.).

 

During the meeting the partners discussed the progress of the activities of IO1 and especially the results of the survey and desk research and the subsequent delivery of national reports for each partner country.

 

Then the partners discussed the activities of Intellectual Output 2 (IO2) of the project which aims at the creation of Business Academies for Culture and Creative Young Professionals through the design and delivery of a VET course. The partners had a lively discussion as to the number and context of the courses which will be designed by CATRO with the assistance of the rest of the partners of the consortium. 

 

Materahub, also presented to the consortium their plan for the delivery of Intellectual Output 3 (IO3) under which the partners will provide guidelines through a guidebook for the creation of culture and creativity Hubs in a rural or remote area. This guidebook will mainly target rural local and regional authorities and administrations. 

 

The partners also discussed about the design and creation of the e-learning platform of the project. The e-learning platform will be accessible to all young creative professionals and rural regional and local authorities and it will contain the national reports developed under IO1, the courses to be developed under IO2 and the guidebook produced by IO3. The e-learning platform will also serve as an online forum where the users of the platform will be able to discuss with each-other and exchange ideas, find partners and inform their colleagues about good-practices.