Employability and Entrepreneurship in Hospitality and IT Industry

Project Summary

A successful labour market integration and more mobility of young people are key to unleashing all young people’s potential and achieving the objective of the 75% employment target for the population (20-64 years) sets by the Europe 2020 strategy.Being located in the rural area which has a touristic potential but also a lack of competitive knowledge in IT, Professional Foundation initiated an activity of mobility in the Hospitality Industry and IT domain. The project aims at increasing the employability and entrepreneurship of 28 VET students (some might be under 18 years old, so they need an accompaning teacher on each flow) and VET newly-graduates who have more difficulties in finding a job, through an experience abroad that enriched them with new working skills, together with a cultural heritage that they gained through living and working in a foreign country. The training for each participant was related to their profile and needs.This was determined at different stages: participants were individually interviewed at the promoting organisation, and there were more encounters in order to understand thoroughly the participant’s needs and expectations. Participants were contacted by the receiving organisations before their departure, in order to discuss about the training schedule. Following that the participants and the receiving organisation agreed on the work placement.

Specific Objectives (professional ones)

1.Provide specialisations to pursue a career in the sectors of Hospitality and IT industry;

2.Foster the acquisition of multidisciplinary and transversal methods, tools and skills that could be applied to entrepreneurship in Hospitality and IT industry;

3.Offer participants the possibility of acquiring new professional skills and specific knowledge aimed at the creation and running of micro-enterprises and to be competitive in the European labour market.

4.Ensure a better recognition of competencies gained abroad through formal, non-formal and informal education by applying the ECVET system.

The training content was as follows:

E+HIT followed three stages : Preparation, Implementation of mobility activities and Follow-up.(3 ECVET credits & Europass Certificates)

Week 1: Departure of the participants, met and greeted at the hotel Ntinas, the receiving organisation, welcoming of the participants, induction, and intensive language course (The language course continued , but only in the evenings or week ends, as the participants were occupied with their work placements).

Induction in the host organisation. Meeting the tutor and staff of the organisation. Overview of the organisation and all its departments; Reading all the relevant documents, included those related to health and safety regulations; general assistance; office support. The trainee was assigned basic tasks in order to get familiar with the activities carried out in the organisation.

Weeks 2-3: The trainee was fully integrated in the organisation. He/she gained confidence and some autonomy, s/he was assigned tasks that he/she was able to carry out independently, obviously under the supervision of their own tutor. Depending on the size of the organisation, he/she was assigned to one specific department, depending on his/her skills and training needs.

Week 4: The trainee was involved in more and more challenging tasks and their level of autonomy increased.

The trainee finished any remaining projects or Prepare a Work-In-Progress document for all unfinished and continuing projects for takeover purposes. The trainee also prepared a feedback document on his/her experience to give to the intermediary organisation for monitoring purposes. The host organisation prepared a reference letter for the trainee, while the receiving organisation prepared all the necessary documents . At the end of the 4th week the trainees left their accommodation and they left by coach back to Romania.The Mutual Trust agreement called Memorandum of Understanding signed before the commencing of the placement, recognised each other as competent authority to provide evaluation of Units of Learning Outcomes and stated the quality standards for the evaluation, assumed the recognition by the sending institution of the evaluation done in the host country by assessing : the Learning Agreement, the Personal Transcript and the Learning Units. Finally, knowledge, skills and competences acquired during the stay abroad were recognized in the home country by officially attesting achieved knowledge, skills and competence and, if appropriate, by awarding the respective amount of ECVET points to the mobile learner (3 points). The employers offered someone the chance to gain practical experience in the field, and trained them in a multicultural environment, thus gaining practical experience in an intercultural communication. Nowadays this is a matter of great importance, given the multiculturality of many cities.

Website: http://www.professionalcentre.ro

Coordinator:

• Fundatia Professional - ROMANIA

Partners:

• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - GREECE