Let’s Get to Work: Youth Building the Future of Social Innovation in Rural Development

That’s exactly the spirit we brought into our recent workshop — and it made all the difference. Join us to hear how the workshop unfolded and discover practical resources you can use to organise one yourself. 

We gathered to explore a big question:
How can we assess and strengthen the impact that entrepreneurial young people have on rural development?

This guiding question shaped a two-day pilot session of the Social Innovation Ecosystem Impact Assessment Tool, held in early September with the inspiring team at the Võru Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre HUUB. 

HUUB is a young, ambitious organisation — created by young people and for young people. Over time, they’ve built a buzzing community of entrepreneurial youth who design meaningful events, run trainings, and support one another in bringing bold ideas to life. 💡🤝 

During the workshop, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work: 

• Clarifying organizational goals 🎯 

• Mapping stakeholders 🗺️ 

• Identifying existing and desired impacts 🌟 

• Defining indicators 📊 

• Building a concrete action plan for the future 🛠️ 

The discussions were guided by Kerli Kõiv, a University of Tartu doctoral researcher with deep experience in youth work and Erasmus+ project leadership. Her facilitation helped spark new perspectives and bold ideas. 

And those ideas? There were many.
The outcomes from these two days will now shape HUUB’s new strategic framework — giving their work even more direction and impact. 

As HUUB’s leader shared: 

“We believe that such discussions generate new ideas and create opportunities for our work to have a stronger impact on the local community.” 

The Social Innovation Ecosystem Impact Assessment Framework that was used during the session is part of the RESIST project — and it comes with a set of very practical Worksheets. These tools are designed to help organisations make sense of their impact journey: from sketching out a Theory of Change to choosing the right indicators and setting up simple monitoring systems. In other words, they help turn big ideas into something structured and actionable. 

All these materials are freely available on the  RESIST webpage under Solutions. You can explore them here: 

• Literature Study: https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/resist/#output-9 

• Practical Workbook: https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/resist/#output-10 

• Worksheets (Excel): https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/resist/#output-11 

• Worksheets as a Miro board: https://tinyurl.com/SIAF-worksheets 

Together, these resources offer both the inspiration, and the hands-on tools organisations need to build clear, meaningful, and measurable impact strategies. 

Here’s to creative spaces, courageous conversations, and young changemakers building the future of rural development.  

Programme Manual Online

Choose