1. Project Name: Opening new business horizons through business meetings with Central and South-East Europe countries
Period: September – December 2015
Target Group: Representatives of Macedonian, Central and South-East European SMEs; Organizations and institutions working on support of SMEs’ development in Macedonia;
Activity Description: 2-day long conference for business networking through B2B meetings, exchange of experiences, good practices and regional bounding opportunities, increasing companies’ competitiveness, business offer and market visibility improvement.
Achieved Results: 50 Macedonian and Central-South-Eastern European SMEs included in the conference and B2B meetings; more than 100 bilateral business meetings organized and contacts created for international collaborations.
2. Project Name: Facilitating integration of ethnic minorities into the labor market through enhancement of their employment potentials
Period: 14 December 2015 – 14 August 2017
Target Group: Young people from ethnic minorities and women with entrepreneurial spirit and need for skills development for (self) employment, CSOs working in the field of entrepreneurship, support and development of entrepreneurs, improvement of labor market, municipalities, local government representatives, other relevant institutions.
Activity Description: Project activities are focused towards facilitation of the process of integration of young people and women from the ethnic minorities in the country into the labor market through strengthening their competitiveness. This project included flexible structured program for building capacities of young people from ethnic minorities based on their individual needs. Creation of new businesses from young people and women from ethnical minorities were promoted and directly supported. Were organized several activities for continuous professional development of young people: organization of public promotional campaign, creative workshops, trainings for starting up own business, working internships, business plan competition and development and improvement of web- portal for entrepreneurship on multiple languages.
Achieved Results:
· Program for (self)employment: trainings for development of individual capacities and skills of youth, English language, IT skills, writing professional CV, motivation letter, business plan writing and business planning;
· Training courses for entrepreneurship and starting own business;
· Program for mentors and professional internships;
· Promotional campaign for entrepreneurship;
· Competition for business plan where the best 5 businesses got awarded with 5000 Euros for starting the business;
· Development of web-platform for learning, with courses for trainers working within CSOs on the topic of youth skills and personal capacities improvement;
· Creative workshops for women interested in starting their own business;
· Development and improvement of the website www.pretpriemac.mk (Albanian version available and presentation of open tool for online commerce);
3. Project Name: Building local capacities for youth policy development
Period: 21 November 2015– 20 May 2017
Target Group: young people, youth CSOs, representatives of three local governments (Probishtip, Staro Nagorichane I Cashka) working with youth policies;
Activity Description: The overall objective of the project is to support the involvement of youth in decision making process and establishment of mechanisms for long term development and sustainable implementation of local youth policies. The goals are: to implement the National Youth Strategy of Macedonia 2015-2020 on local level, adapting it to the local needs and priorities; Promotion of cooperation of CSOs and municipality policy makers; Capacity building of all stakeholders for creation and implementation of youth local policies; Establishing of joint forums for development, monitoring and implementation of local youth programs and creation public opinion.
Achieved Results:
· Field study and comparative analysis of the current status of the youth policies in the 3 municipalities;
· Developing and introducing youth local policies training aimed for CSOs and local authorities;
· Piloting 6 youth support measures in 3 municipalities;
· Organisation of 3 youth forums and 3 public debates;
· Open call for awarding finance to 6 projects from local CSOs in the 3 municipalities;
4. Project Name: Trainings and personalized consultations for access to finance, for better competitiveness and innovation of entrepreneurs and their businesses
Period: 1 August 2015 – 20 December 2015
Target Group: entrepreneurs, SME owners on the territory of Skopje, aged 18-45
Activity Description: Organized 2 workshops for project management and access to finance through national and European programs and personalized individual consultations with 10 entrepreneurs participating in the workshops and interested in project preparation for access to finance through different instruments. Consultations were hold by experienced mentors, part of the expert network of YES Foundation with long experience in different programs for access to finance for SMEs.
Achieved Results: 24 young entrepreneurs and owners of 18 different startups and SMEs in Skopje participated in 2 specialized trainings for project management and access to finance. 11 of them were part of personalized consultations for access to finance and programs according their businesses and needs, in order to become more competitive and innovative in their work. 7 of the startups working within the YES Business Incubator applied of two call of FITR and 3 of them got awarded with direct financial support.
5. Project Name: “Young creative entrepreneurs for sustainable Skopje”- Raising awareness for social entrepreneurship through creation of platform for promotion and support of the concept of youth social businesses
Period: 9 June 2015 – 26 November 2015
Target Group: CSOs on the territory of Skopje, working or having the potential to work in the area of social and youth entrepreneurship; students and unemployed young people of the age 18-30 from Skopje;
Activity Description: Raising awareness of CSOs and young people for the opportunities and advantages of social entrepreneurship through transfer of knowledge and useful European practices. Creating base for joint and systematic work of CSOs in the field of social entrepreneurship through creation of platform for networking, exchange and collaboration. Increasing the level of information among youth through promotional-education material (toolkit and video presentations) about how to start and lead social businesses.
Achieved Results:
· 8 CSOs and 12 representatives participated in the working meeting for social entrepreneurship and discussed suggestions and recommendations for promotional platform for raising awareness within civil sector, youth, entrepreneurs and wider public for support and promotion of social entrepreneurship;
· Preparation of educational promo materials under the slogan “Get Inspired” (toolkit for creation of social business and disseminated video messages with successful stories from European social companies);
· Educational promo material was followed with online campaign on the websites of YES Foundation which contributed with at least 3000 young people to get information for the opportunities and advantages of starting social business;
· The results were promoted on several events visited by more of 30 stakeholders, such as European week of SMEs 2015, Global Week of Entrepreneurship 2015 and Youth Info BOOM project.
6. Project Name: Increasing capacities of young entrepreneurs for successful marketing and sale in order to encourage the development of innovative products and their successful placement in the market
Period: 11 July 2015 – 30 April 2016
Target Group: young entrepreneurs who own their business, young people with entrepreneurial spirit who want to own a business;
Activity Description: 2 training for selling skills and successful marketing, mentoring sessions- business meetings with facilitators, 2 video courses for the online audience posted on the websites yes.org.mk and pretpriemac.mk, as well as dissemination through newsletters and social media.
Achieved Results: 30 young entrepreneurs and owners of businesses participated in the training and mentoring sessions and gained knowledge and skills for more successful selling techniques and tools during the placement process of their products and services on the market. More than 3000 young people and entrepreneurs were targeted through the publishing and dissemination of the online courses.