**4. Private sector development through career advising**

Significant results in the development of entrepreneurship and solving the problems of employment of Belarusians were achieved through the application of the experience of the internship under the Community Connections program, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Community Connections program is a 3-week internship in the USA designed according to the professional interests of the participants.

Internships include visits to similar professional organizations in the United States to exchange experiences, participation in conferences on the topic of the visit, communication with experts, as well as participation in cultural events and volunteer activities.

The selection is carried out on a competitive basis based on the results of questionnaires and interviews. Proficiency in English is not required to participate in the program.

The experience of this program, studied in 2015 on the topic "**Private Sector Development through Career Advising**" (host organization **Global Ties Detroit**), was widely implemented in GSTU and the Gomel region (Belarus).

*The Implementation of Best Practices of International Projects as the Way of Enhancement… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111403*

This experience may be interesting for specialists working with socially vulnerable groups from other countries.

The main part of the internship took place in Detroit, where several activities focused on problems with unemployment and employment. As part of the internship, the participants got acquainted with the experience of about 30 different organizations in Detroit (career development and job assistance centers, entrepreneurship development centers, colleges, universities, public organizations, **Figure 17**).

Among others, the hosts presented their experiences on government programs and American experience on how to help people find employment, including socially unprotected people, the illiterate, the homeless, and how they can create their own business.

The participants also got acquainted with the experience of Detroit Universities (Wayne State University, https://wayne.edu; Oakland University, https://www.oakla nd.edu) and Colleges (Wayne County Community College District, https://www. wcccd.edu; Macomb Community College, https://www.macomb.edu) in the work of student career development centers and leadership programs.

Entrepreneurship and private business are of great importance in solving the problems of employment in the United States. Considerable efforts are devoted to promoting the ways of how entrepreneurs can solve the social problems of society.

**Figure 17.** *Some visited organizations in Detroit.*

Therefore, the colleagues from both countries discussed the best practices of training people, programs for the development of entrepreneurial skills, programs for business education, and entrepreneurship support.

When developing projects implemented in Belarus, similarities between the city of Detroit (USA) and the city of Gomel (Belarus) were taken into account, including a similar level of industrial development (machine building, for example), which has led Detroit to unemployment problems, the need for vocational training, as well as economic recession in the past. Due to this experience, as well as advice from American colleagues and interaction with other Community Connections alumni, it became possible to implement a number of ideas and projects in Gomel (Belarus), among which are the projects "**Successful Employment,**" **Inclusive Business School "Social Entrepreneur," Start-Up School "ИПК Business School**.**"**

The projects implemented in Gomel are aimed, first of all, at promoting the employment of students and socially vulnerable groups, the development of business education and social entrepreneurship. For example, the best practices from Detroit were implemented at GSTU through the educational innovative projects "School of social entrepreneurship" (since 2016) and "Successful Employment" (since 2017).

The educational project **"Successful Employment"** was implemented in 2017-2018 with the support of U.S. Embassy Small Grants Program (**Figure 18**, http:// www.mystart.by).

The project allowed GSTU to organize events for successful employment, career growth, increasing employment and entrepreneurial activity of citizens of the Gomel region who have lost their jobs or are at risk of losing them, as well as to increase the personal social responsibility of citizens to society and their families.

A key feature of the "Successful Employment" project is the emphasis on psychological support for participants (experience of JVS Human Services, https://jvshuma nservices.org) and training in the programs "How to find a job" and "How to create your own business" (experience of DESC, https://descmiworks.org; TechTown Detroit, https://techtowndetroit.org; International Strategic Management (ISM) https://myisminc.com, and others).

**Figure 18.** *Logo and film about the project "Successful Employment."*

*The Implementation of Best Practices of International Projects as the Way of Enhancement… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.111403*

Moreover, using the information resources of the ISM enhances the up-to-date information on the development of entrepreneurship such as, for example, the tactics and strategies that lead to strengthened engagement of the potential customers in solid, beneficial relationships [21].

Over 50 interactive seminars were held during the project "Successful Employment," trainings and masterclasses were held, and more than 150 people took part in the project, including 52 participants of final part on creating own business. At least 25 project participants were successfully employed and have already created their own businesses and got project mentors support.

For the 1st time in the Gomel region, an open IT-HACKATON was held (PONYRIDE experience, https://www.ponyride.org/)—a competition on developing innovative job search resources, and for the 1st time in Gomel region, a competition of housewives and mothers on maternity leave business ideas was held (experience of Build Institute, https://www.buildinstitute.org/).

At the final stage of the project, a large-scale conference was organized, where the participants presented their business projects to the mentors (**Figure 19**).

The prize-winners received financial support from project funds. Systematic activity on the support of employment and business initiatives was organized on the basis of LLL Institute at Sukhoi State Technical University.

Relevant job placements and career development of project participants confirm that U.S. experience can be successfully used in Belarus. And this experience was scaled up thanks to the "**Inclusive Business School of Social Entrepreneur**" project, also based on the experience of Detroit.

Successful entrepreneurs, experts from Belarus, Sweden, Italy, and alumni of U.S. exchange programs have united to implement the School of Social Entrepreneurship project.

Aiming at the development and promotion of the social entrepreneurship in Belarus, the university staff have created the first social business school in the Gomel

**Figure 19.** *The final conference by project "Successful Employment."*

#### **Figure 20.**

*International networking: experience of the TEMPUS Ecotesy Project.*


#### **Table 5.**

*Fragment of the first of BY university course curriculum on the discipline "social entrepreneurship."*

region (since 2016), that is implemented in partnership with local public organizations and business communities.

The school is based on an innovative business course on social entrepreneurship, during which participants develop their social business projects and create their own business with the support of experienced mentors.

It should be noted that within the framework of the pilot initiative "School of Social Entrepreneurship," Valentina Vasicheva for the first time presented the principles and ideas of network interaction between scientific communities from Sweden, Belarus, Ukraine, Estonia, Spain, UK (**Figure 20**), which were worked out in 2014-2017 in the course of the international project **"Interregional Network for Innovative Development of Ecosystems Technosphere Based on Micro- and Nanoobject Technologies"** of the European Union TEMPUS Program.

Thus, from 2016 to 2022, more than 150 people were trained at the school of social entrepreneurship, for the first time in Belarus, the LLL Institute at GSTU created a training course **"Social Entrepreneurship"** for students (since 2019) and new social entrepreneurs appeared in Gomel (Belarus).

Along with training in economics, marketing and management, as a part of the discipline **"Social Entrepreneurship"**, students are taught to formulate a business idea for social entrepreneurship, develop and crash-test a business plan for its implementation (**Table 5**).

In general, the project "Successful Employment" and the "School of Social Entrepreneurship" project made it possible to obtain very interesting results, about which more than 100 reports were published in the Belarusian media and a large-scale publication should be written.

Thus, new communities of graduates of the LLL Institute of GSTU programs and social entrepreneurs are being formed, the development of which is the task of our further research and enhancement. And the authors will be grateful to colleagues for the exchange of experience in working with such communities.
