Urban Art & Social Entrepreneurship

“Urban Art & Social Entrepreneurship” is a 12 months capacity building project that involved seven organizations from six different countries (Guatemala, France, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain), whose aim was to professionalize urban artists/youth workers, with an innovative and creative educational approach (the use of urban art) for creating their own social entrepreneurship projects and/or initiatives in order to promote the social and professional inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities and the transformation of their communities.The main objectives of the project are:-To improve key competences of urban artists, in order to professionalize their art and thus being able to carry out social entrepreneurship projects and/or activities.-To provide and exchange pedagogical and social tools, so urban artists can train and guide youth with fewer opportunities.-To promote a higher quality of youth work, especially with young people with fewer opportunities, fostering professionalization of talents and the internationalization of work.-To create an international network of organizations that use urban art as a tool of social transformation, inclusion, and integral development, in order to promote the cooperation and exchange of good practice between Programme Country and other Partner countries of the world.To achieve these objectives, the main activities planned and done are:-Transnational coordinating meeting in Guatemala City (Guatemala) where partners specified strategies, working methods and details of future activities (partner agreements, evaluation tools, monitoring systems, visibility activities, etc.). An event of visibility with local population has been also organized, including an open debate about urban art, social inclusion and entrepreneurship, some free workshops and a show with all elements of urban art.-Local Activities I: mapping of organizations, institutions, companies, etc. who work with urban art, considering also its social approach. Diagnosis and definition of priority profiles and specific learning and training needs of urban artists.-Mobility of youth workers (2 for organization) to Málaga (Spain): Training of 18 days with the main aim of professionalizing and providing youth workers new tools and skills. Working sessions include social, pedagogical, technical-artistic, management, marketing and health training, as well as visits to connected institutions and activities to put into practice the new competences acquired.-Local Activities II: implementation of new knowledge, methodologies and competences acquired during the mobility, dissemination of outputs (booklet, video, etc.) and outcomes of the project, and its multiplication. Local workshops and a final event have been organized in each participating country in order to give more visibility, local and international impact to the project.The main outputs of the project created and available online for free are videos of the project and the booklet “Urban Art & Social Entrepreneurship”: it’s a digital publication where a description of the project is provided, as well as all its phases, activities, new tools created, methodological sheets, photos, etc. The booklet has been translated in the official languages of the countries of the partner organizations.After the end of the project, we can state that urban artists have been trained and have improved and/or acquired new competences to develop their social initiatives and/or projects based on urban art, as well as to train other young people, multiplying the acquired learning and being agents of change in their local communities.