Promoting youth entrepreneurship through student cooperatives. first results of a NEET prevention program

Grounded in the whole-school approach, the Bell’Impresa! project promotes active citizenship and democratic values to prevent school dropout and reduce NEETs among young people. By fostering entrepreneurship, personal respon-sibility, and creativity, it aligns with constructivist principles and adopts a stu-dent-centred capability approach. The project evaluation employed Kirkpat-rick’s four-level model and exploratory focus groups with 62 primary school students, 52 secondary students, 7 teachers, 15 educators, and 5 local authori-ties. Data were analyzed inductively to understand participants’ perceptions and the development of student competencies. The creation of 25 student co-operatives and workshops fostered experiential and reflective learning, ena-bling students to acquire entrepreneurial, communicative-relational, organisa-tional-managerial, and decision-making skills. These cooperatives facilitated students’ active agency, teamwork, and exposure to democratic principles, sup-ported by strong school-community partnerships. Bell’Impresa! demonstrates how student cooperatives function as learning environments that integrate ed-ucational and community needs. By producing tangible outcomes, students as-sumed responsible roles within their communities, addressing real needs and contributing to sustainable educational and social change