Creating Opportunities for Young Entrepreneurs through E-Commerce (COOYEC) is a large scale project focusing on creating employment possibilities (including self-employment) for youth with fewer opportunities: from deprived neighborhoodswith migrant backgrounds. The project will be executed in 3 countries, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.Context/backgroundThe economic crisis, the lack of formal qualifications and the issue of work-related discrimination inspires more and more young people to leave the labour market and opt for self-employment through entrepreneurship. With this Strategic Partnership, we strive to reach target groups of young people that currently aren't participating in projects fighting youth unemployment, using the experience & networks the various international partners have & represent. Most young entrepreneurs focus on local activities because they lack the knowledge of online business and e-commerce and therefore miss out on the opportunities that the Internet offers. In the coming years they will continue to lag behind in these fields, not fulfilling their potential. Every year, new online concepts and services are introduced. Youth organizations want to step in & offer courses on e-commerce, but find their own knowledge & skills relating to online business insufficientAims/objectivesThis project aims to develop a sustainable methodology, toolkit and online platform for international youth-workers, in providing transnational trainings in online entrepreneurship to youth with a bi-cultural background. The focus will be on transnational entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial opportunities offered by the bi-cultural background of the participating youth and youth workers. Besides, the partner organizations involved have been instrumental in offering courses in entrepreneurship to migrant youth with ambitions to improve their employability and position on the labour market. By cooperating in this enduring trajectory, the partners strive to develop methods and trainings for youth workers with a focus on including and expanding the unique and specific skills a bi-cultural background offers. The project also features the supra-national development of a comprehensive manual and toolkit for youth workers with a focus on cooperation across borders, aimed to train young entrepreneurs with a bi-cultural background. All partners contribute a (modest) investment to help fund the best projects and the realization of the pilot.Participants/target groupsWe will reach at least 800 young people, part of the secondary target-group of youth living in deprived neighborhoods, with the trainings that will be delivered by the trainers we trained in C3 (an average of 40 per trainer, over the years, starting after the delivery of the final digital manual and training method). However, we will reach much more young people (and youth workers) indirectly through the website and manual that we will promote in each of the participating countries. Our primary target group consists of youth workers/educators that are active in multi-cultural urban communities, ie. representatives of partner organizations who have been involved in the organizations's past e-commerce, entrepreneurship and ICT-activities/projects. The members of these communities, predominantly youth from migrant backgrounds, are our secondary target group.Our program consists of 8 phases:Phase 1: Goal: The development of a methodology tailored to the particular features and opportunities of e-commerce, based on the research of partners & shared best practices. Assessing needs & objectives of target groups.• Assessing, establishing and meeting of our primary target groups• Building partnerships and discussing project strategies• Sharing best practices and brilliant failures • Agreeing on time schedule and task division Phase 2: Goal: development of the training program, based on the methodology and outcomes of phase 1.• Training of trainers (primary target group)• Pilot given to unemployed youth (secondary target group) by the trainers trained.Phase 3: Goal: Improving methodology of our training, by evaluating & reflecting on the pilot. Getting input for manual (digital course method, with instruction videos exercises; created by using creative commons/open source principles) .• Evaluation and reflection with partner-organizations, trainers & participants in order to develop the final manual.Phase 4: Goal: Finalizing methodology, training, manual for future implementation.• Development of final training & manual using all information and evaluations done in previous phases.Phase 5: Goal: Dissemination of the project results, presentation of the training & manual to international peers.• International multiplyer event/conference introducing publication/website&manual.• Implementing results into training of 20 trainers.Phase 6:Goal: Final evaluation, making the project sustainable, working on future cooperation.