Youth Professional Kitchen-New Technologies for Social Business

Youth Professional Kitchen

ARNO’s inspiration behind this project was the high demand of chefs vs. the poor reputation of the gastronomy students in our society. This project is the first in the country that promotes Social Entrepreneurship through the use of IT to innovatively reduce youth unemployment and build sustainable youth communities.

As part of the project, 20 students (chefs) from the Vocational School received training on basic business skills such as introduction to the social enterprise model, training on managing Social Media platforms, use of e-mail and professional correspondence, and building CVs and portfolios. The students also received professional creative photos for further use of self-promotion. Some of the students, thanks to the project, received exposure to the job market and obtained their first jobs.

The IT products of the projects are:

– Webpage and Mobile App – www.mojketering.mk, through which every citizen can order catering from the school and thus support the students. All catering income is reinvested in the students.

– Webpage http://www.coolinari.mk and RECEPTKO (Mobile App for recipes) – online platforms that promote the culinary profession and serve as a database for employers. This includes youth recipes and where youth chefs with CVs get exposure to the labor market.

The project was implemented with a grant given within the framework of the UNDP’s “Youth Social Entrepreneurship Support” Program in partnership with the State VET School for Gastronomy “Lazar Tanev”, NGO “Youth Can”, Municipality of Center and few private companies. As first the project of ARNO, with all of its success stories, this initiative grew to a publicly recognized program titled “It’s Cool to be Coolinary” and a dream for a registering legal entity, a Social Enterprise “Coolinary”.

Highlights: For this project, ARNO was shortlisted at the European Youth Awards 2014. The European Youth Award (EYA) is a pan-European contest to motivate young people, social entrepreneurs and startups to produce socially valuable digital projects that address the goals defined by the Council of Europe and Europe 2020. It demonstrates their potential to create innovative solutions with Internet and mobile technology.