Handmade Entrepreneurs

In recent years, handicrafts have become a very popular form of spending free time, personal development, but also promoting values related to: the culture, the traditions and achievements of past generations. This interest translates into an increasing number of young Europeans also associated with handicrafts with their professional lives. Handicraft entrepreneurship is characterized by a specific closed market, having: its own communication channels with recipients, own brand building principles, creating their own social networks and using completely different patterns of activities from typical business activities. Participants of the exchange want to learn how to function in this world, how to be competitive and how to plan their careers by organizing a joint meeting.

The project involves organizing preparations in the countries of the participants along with a preparatory visit and an 8-day youth exchange in Poland, in Józefów (Central Poland, near Warsaw). During the meeting, young people will work together on handicrafts as a modern profession, meet craftsmen who have been successful and work on various aspects of creating their own business. They will also learn about the specific work of brokers in the sale of handicraft products, which are handicraft galleries. Skills and competences will be exercised through non-formal methods related to: simulations, analysis of good practices, business plan creation, social media strategy and risk analysis.

As a result of the project, participants will prepare a program to support young craftsmen in their partner organizations. Participants, as part of the launched program, will support each other in their activities and provide support to other peers from their environments, organizations and countries (depending on the resources and scale of partners' activities). The program together with the results developed during the exchange will be available to all interested parties, being a long-term effect of the activities