One Page Summary

Arcolaio manages 5 Community Labs in Bologna, places where the social fabric is reinforced through inclusive and participatory activities, dedicated to vulnerable and socially excluded people. One of their first activities was an autobiographical lab which pointed out homeless people’s competences, informal relationships and knowledge of the surroundings, and which now constitutes the basis of the tourist guide’s start-up project.
Our proposal is then addressed to long-term unemployed, men, women, Italians and foreigners to support their self-entrepreneurship and the creation of a start-up active in the field of solidarity tourism.
For the EntreComp - European framework on entrepreneurial skills, Entrepreneurship means acting on opportunities and ideas to transform them into value for others. The generated change can be financial, cultural, or social.
The concrete needs on which our project wants to act therefore concern several levels:
Economic/financial: our target lives in conditions of extreme poverty, without financial autonomy, often weighs up totally and in a chronic manner on the economic support of public services;
Cultural: there is a widespread perception concerning the impossibility to create viable entrepreneurial alternatives to current models, a sense of passivity and inadequacy and a weak boost to self-entrepreneurship and autonomy;
Social: our target lives in social exclusion, personal isolation, interpersonal bonds depletion, does not actively contribute its community social identity, is often seen as a threat or a burden.
We therefore propose a training/experiential path for our target to make the most of Community Labs experience and turn it into a real small company. Concretely, the course aims to reinforce both specific skills of the tourist guide role and transversal skills related to entrepreneurship, using both formal and non-formal learning methods. It will involve 20 Community Labs users as well as other 6 people among volunteers and operators already working there. The objective is therefore not only to transform the Lab into a start-up but also, through the involvement of these assistants, to sow the contents of the path in the various Labs of the city, supporting their maturation and maximizing the impact of the project. Participants will be provided a 75 hours training/experiential/learning by doing course + 40 hours of workshops.
Preliminary analysis allowed us to identify skills that we consider fundamental not only for their importance for any entrepreneur, but above all because they are particularly weak and not structured in our target. We chose elements belonging to all three areas of EntreComp (Ideas and opportunities, Resources and In Action). The skills we want to reinforce are Vision, Self-awareness and Self-efficacy, Mobilizing Resources, Planning and Managing, Work with others and Learning from experience in practical terms and strongly linked to the context.
In addition to activities supporting the aforementioned skills, specific topics on financial management, marketing, communication will also be discussed, as well as those specific to the profession of tourist guide. A feasibility study will also be produced for an online portal that will contribute to the marketing of tourist packages. The platform for this and the subsequent start-ups that Arcolaio is committed to support, is currently in the phase of research funds and design.
Supporting entrepreneurship means for us to pursue goals declined on several levels and that last over time:
Economic/financial: more chances to get out of poverty, stronger financial autonomy, less economic burden for public services;
Cultural: greater dynamism within the labour market, dissemination of alternative and innovative solutions that combine elements not tested yet, widespread reactivation and a sense of responsibility with regard to their future;
Social: social inclusion of our target group, reinforcement of interpersonal ties and sense of belonging to the socio-economic territory, social perception of our target as a resource, diminished sense of danger;
The project intends to involve local businesses to offer coaching and participation to existing entrepreneurial realities, this way participants will see from the inside how a company works and will participate. (Learning by doing).
Local public bodies will be stimulated through the meetings and local events. This will help the project's target not only to get to know its own territory but to get back in contact with agencies that will help them to better orient themselves in the coming years and thus to support their business projects.
Volunteers that already collaborate with the Labs will bring their experience and network in support of future start-ups.
Cultural associations will support the project and the start-up by promoting them through their events.
We have studied similar project active in Milan, Vienna, London and will invite them to collaborate with us.