SELFY — Bridging To The Future

SELFY is a European consortium focused on raising the qualities, experiences, attitudes, and skills (QEAS) of young people across Europe in relation to Social Enterprise and Leadership. SELFY is a project about enabling: enabling young people to lead and be enterprising so that they can become full, equal, and productive members of society.

Based on the SLAM! methodology developed by Bridging to the Future, SELFY is a robust and practical programme for developing social leadership and social entrepreneurial QEAS amongst a wide section of communities, individuals, regions, and organisations.

Bridging to the Future has piloted SLAM! in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the UK and has helped over 1000 young people to date. These young people have run micro-businesses, community projects, youth projects, and have created paid employment through SLAM! Now, the SELFY project is a partnership of organisations from the UK, Lithuania, Spain, Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic who want to work together to take SLAM! into Europe. In January, practical delivery of the SELFY methodology will start in Athens, Ostrava, and Šiauliai.

Over the past few months, the SELFY partners have conducted research on entrepreneurship and leadership of young people within their country. The research concerned topics such as socio-economic disadvantage, unemployment, social exclusion, entrepreneurship of young people, and support for the development of knowledge and experience related to entrepreneurship and leadership.

Looking forward, SELFY aims to:

• Increase the social enterprise and leadership abilities amongst 100 young people from five different countries;
• Create a toolkit for youth organisations across the EU to raise social enterprise and leadership amongst their young people; and
• Enable individuals and organisations to move towards economic independence through running a social business.

Head to www.selfyproject.eu and learn more about the project, how you can get involved, and for the full State of the Art Report.

DT