The gastronomic sector will suffer from a shortage of staff in the near future (Lecture about future perspectives of the labour market, Dr. Helmrich- National Agency Germany 2013) on the one hand and on the other hand it needs initiatives to help fulfil the European 2020 strategy by fostering smart and sustainable growth. The empowerment of young people through the development of skills and competences is one tool to help tackle the key challenges Europe is facing. There is the urgent need to equip young people with key competences as outlined in the European Reference Framework as well as with future skills to avoid not only a skills gap in the future, but also to fight rising levels of unemployment as well as to provide the labour market with the required skills (New Skills for new Jobs). European Enterprises on the other hand are facing the need to align business operations in a sustainable manner. The project aims to equip teacher/trainer with the necessary skills for being able to promote entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship among pupils. The beneficiaries shall put entrepreneurial ideas into practice with a view to tackle the challenge of enterprises on how to align business operations in a sustainable manner within the communities of the partner countries. Through this blended learning approach, including an exchange to partner countries, the project fosters mobility and guarantees at the same time the RECOGNITION AND VALIDATION OF THE QUALIFICATION in order to make competences as well as NON- FORMAL AND INFORMAL GAINED SKILLS transparent. The approach of this project will allow the target group and beneficiaries to gain NEW SKILLS, PRACTICAL EXPERIENCES in form of short work placements, increase their knowledge in regards to INTERCULTURAL and ENTREPRENEURSHIP SKILLS, SUSTAINABILITY, LANGUAGES and KEY COMPETENCES. Special attention shall be drawn to the inclusion of persons with special needs as well as young people with fewer opportunities to foster social inclusion. The SME`s, located in non typical tourist destinations such as in rural areas, will benefit from an increased attractiveness, contact to (young) professionals and new, innovative approaches to help solve current challenges they are facing. The long term benefits will help the tourism sector to fight a shortage of staff and the beneficiaries by an increase of key competences and various skills including future skills, which will ultimately increase employability and help to remove obstacles to enter the labour market. The educational sector will improve its quality and benefit from increased internationalisation, through the transnational cooperation within the project consortium. The partnership is composed of five partners: The lead partner CET as a high school offers career professional development programs including vocational directions such as tourism, catering and commerce. BEST, as a provider of continuous training, vocational qualification and career services, will contribute to the project with its experience related to the creation of innovative training programmes for learners, the recognition and validation of skills as well as the content delivery of didactical knowledge to teacher/ trainer. LAUKU CELOTAJS, as the Latvian Country Tourism Association, has extensive experiences in rural tourism development methods. The Spanish partner DRAMBLYS has experiences in learning-centred, participatory methodologies as well as with OER. The Comune di Gubio, as municipality, will compile their experiences in regards to their key function and the development of stakeholder dialogues and involvement within regions. The following results will be produced: - developing a new, pedagogical approach to support high quality in schools and VET; coordinating this approach through collaboration and dialogue with key stakeholders - developing training contents for teachers (entrepreneurship education, intercultural skills, new skills deriving of the need to align business operations in a sustainable manner, key competences) and conducting a short term learning training event for trainers -establishing a cooperation, which allows the beneficiaries to experience short work placements at tourism enterprises (in rural areas) within partner countries and developing a framework guideline for allowing the transferability of such approach into different European regions - enhancing digital integration in learning and training (development of an E- learning for the increase of intercultural competences and development of a new Open Educational Resource- OER) - usage of transparency and recognition tools for the training and involvement of non- formal and informal gained skills in order to foster transparency and visibility (European Skills Pass) - deriving of the new training it will be defined which skills (from non- formal and informal learning) can be validated and made visible for the beneficiaries of the project