Why Not Me?” 2.0: Stimulating and Showcasing Good Practices on Youth Entrepreneurship

“Why Not Me?”2.0: Stimulating and showcasing good practices on youth entrepreneurship aims to map, showcase and stimulate success stories of young entrepreneurs coming from 4 regions of North Macedonia, using experiential learning and gamification through Instagram and Youtube. Mladiinfo promoted young entrepreneurs through the 1st project edition “Why Not Me”? supported by the US Embassy in 2014 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOTjsYI_vDw).

This time, the focus is on efficient storytelling for impact, using the vast experience and visibility of Mladiinfo with 120,000 fans and followers and 100,000 web-visits per month. Explored will be both personal and professional development of the entrepreneurs, empowering and educating youngsters on the procedures for establishing own ventures. We believe in a process of peer-to-peer learning, where we create a community of proactive resilient youth. At the end of the 10-month project, youth will have their awareness raised on the benefits of self-employment, will be educated on how to start own business, and will be empowered to start own ventures.

Using 11 years of experience of Mladiinfo in youth work, we would focus on building a youth-friendly narrative and trending products: short videos, Instagram stories, Instagram pools, short quizzes and vlogs. We aim to empower youngsters in 4 regions, rural and urban, as well as ethnically and socially diverse groups aiming to reach out to 1000 people.

The goal of Why Not Me? 2.0. is to raise awareness on the self-employment among young people in North Macedonia and to contribute to the increase of job-creation and entrepreneurial culture in the Southwest, Eastern, Polog, and Skopje region of the country.

Objectives:

– To map, showcase and stimulate positive examples and success stories of 10 young entrepreneurs as community role-models, coming from 4 regions of North Macedonia, rural and urban, as well as ethnically and socially diverse groups, using experiential learning and gamification through Instagram and Youtube.

– To inform and educate more than 1000 youngsters on the procedures and administrative requirements to start own business, as well as to support not only their professional, but also their personal development by pointing out their success stories and fears and fails using impactful storytelling and gamification tools.

– To directly empower 70 and indirectly encourage 1000 youngsters to embrace self-employment and start their own business in Southwest, Eastern, Polog and Skopje region, thus developing their entrepreneurial mindset and proactive approach using impactful storytelling and experiential learning.

– To nurture a startup culture and change-making spirit among youth aged 18-35 in Southwest, Eastern, Polog and Skopje region, by creating an online community of min. 200 experienced and aspiring young entrepreneurs using gamified tools on social media (Instagram and Youtube).

Project partners: Association for education Mladiinfo International, Association of Citizens Youth Can, Youth Empowerment Platform, and Poraka Nova.

*This project was funded in part through a U.S. Embassy grant. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the implementers/authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government.