Project Description.

« Bellacoopia Europe » is a project created in the frame of a Youth Initiave, the Action 1.2 of the Youth in Action Programme. The project allowed a group of youngsters coming from four different countries to simulate the creation of a European Cooperative Society, with one name but four branches, one in each participant country. The aim of such an activity is to raise young people’s awareness about the cooperation and its values , encouraging their creativity and entrepreneurship as well as their capacity to work as part of an international team.

The first edition of Bellacoopia Europe involved 16 youngsters from Italy, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom, four young participants each country. The project lasted 6 month, from May to October 2009, and was characterized by 3 different phases:

In the first phase the youngsters met in Forlì in May 2009, where, through workshops, visits, meetings with experts of the co-operative world and roundtables, the group agreed on a common idea of European cooperative enterprise to develop.
In phase two, each national group work in its own country to develop the business plan of the ECS, so that, at the end of this phase 4 business plans were conceived. Four business plans for four enterprises which would operate in each partner country. The business plan is structured in 4 points so that each participant was referent for one area and eased the exchange with the foreign group. These moments of exchange, team-building and project development, took place through videoconferences. Thanks to this methodology the group developed and evaluated transnationally every step of their work.
In the last part of the project the participants met up again in Forlì to homologate the business plans and to present their work to local and regional authorities during two public moments:
A press conference at the Faculty of Non-profit Economy open to journalists, students and citizens where the output of the project was presented to the localk community
In a presentation at the Ecomondo fair, in Rimini, during the annual ceremony to price the Bellacoopia regional contest organized by Legacoop Emilia-Romagna.

Bellacoopia Europe don’t want to be just a simulation of a detailed business plan, but the first step toward an initiative that will become a regular annual activity, with the purpose to involve more European groups of youngsters to participate every year, and giving birth to innovative ideas and project in the field of European co-operation.