Paths of Inclusion in Youth Employability

Project Summary

With this project, we plan to boost employability across Europe and help young people enter the market more easily. In a Europe where million of people suffer from unemployment and on the other side million of job vacancies in multiple industries, it is very important to equip our youth with the ability to search for a job, apply to the most suitable one for them and successfully enter the market. Our training, courses and activities are destined to direct correctly youth workers and leaders in order to become more efficient in their daily work and bring innovation to their own projects.

Overall, our objectives can be described as following:

• Enhance participants’ competences on career guidance, counseling, orientation, and coaching with practical tools.
• Explore and map platforms, portals, strategies and websites for European job opportunities and the ways to use them to enhance active job search of young people.
• Develop a network of youth workers and leaders among European Union promote best practices, challenges, ideas, obstacles and policies related with youth employability in Europe.
• Share and create efficient and creative models for CV creation and undertaking of job interviews.
• Empower the role of the Erasmus + and Non Formal Education as tools to boost the employability and labor market awareness of youngsters in European Union and not only.

Activities

We have planned a variety of activities and we mention them below with further details:

• Day 1: DURING THE DAY- Arrival of participants and ice breakers to create a friendly atmosphere. Presentation of the training course EVENING - Welcome Evening.
• Day 2:MORNING - Presentation of the project, staff and program. Expectations, Fears and Contribution. Feedback by the trainers and setting up of ground rules. Team building activities, such as "crossing the river". Debriefing by the trainers. AFTERNOON - Formal, non-formal and informal education,features and differences, uses for personal and professional development. Youthpass: work on the key competences in groups. Presentation,feedback, and discussion on other certification methods and best practices for recognition of NFE. Daily Reflection EVENING - NGO Fair,presentations and time for networking.
• Day 3: MORNING - Employment and employability: group work, definition and presentations with creative methods (art, collage, drawing). Points of view of most relevant European institutions and agencies from the trainers. Presentation of top Soft Skills for the labor market (Communication; Time Management; Languages; etc.) with creative, interactive methods (simulations, games, role plays).Discussion on recognition and support young people in succeeding in this. AFTERNOON - Myths and false beliefs in different societies about “good”and “decent” jobs. Self Reflection, then "Fishbowl" discussion. Presentation by trainers identifying common beliefs and ways for youth to overcome them. How to reach our goals. Practical examples, working of participants on their own and in pairs, finding together new paths. Debriefing and feedback, models for goal setting, monitoring, and motivational tools. EVENING – Intercultural evening: creative presentation of each country (music,quiz, games).
• Day 4: MORNING - Local realities on youth unemployment, statistics, facts, policies and strategies. Preparation and presentations by national groups. We will collect the results of this session to produce an online publication. AFTERNOON - Unemployment in Europe. Quiz to discover more about the European Labor Market. Websites to show statistics and facts, and tools for active job search in Europe. Programs and EU strategies for employability (EyE, Eures, Ploteus, Vet mobility, Europe 2020, Youth Guarantee, New Skills for New Jobs, Youth Employment Initiative, etc.) Daily Reflection EVENING – Mid-Term Evaluation
• Day 5: MORNING - Visit to the municipality Round table on policies for youth employability and presentation of best practices. Q&A session. Visit to Meteora a monument of UNESCO World Heritage that will be visited from the group of participants in order to promote interculturalism among participating countries and also to provide information about Greek culture.AFTERNOON - CV building, tips and tricks, differences in Europe, presentation of formats and creative examples. Practical work on alternative CVs (video; ppt; artistic; Linkedin) Daily reflection EVENING - Movie night on employment and discussion.
• Day 6: MORNING – Do's and Dont 's for Job Interviews. Working in groups. Summarizing and feedback by trainers. External Speakers: economist and entrepreneur. Another perspective on selecting candidates. AFTERNOON - Job Interview Simulation., preparation and implementation with the guests. Comments from the group and from the experts, suggestions and tips. Daily reflection EVENING - World Cafè to discuss topics of interest.
• Day 7: MORNING - Presentation of Erasmus plus, focusing on the youth chapter. Video examples. Q&A. Working in groups for designing of new projects' ideas. Presentations and feedback by trainers. AFTERNOON - Discussion and preparation of dissemination of results. Youthpass finalization, singularly and in groups. EVENING - Farewell party. The day after, we'll have the final evaluation, closing ceremony, and departures of participants. We have include a variety of countries in the project, as we want to "internationalize" its impact and promote conversation and further cooperation. Our participants will be youth workers and leaders whose their everyday work include young people's employability problems and common challenges, like create a good CV, be ready for an interview and find a decent job. They will be over 18 years old and will already have an experience on how to deal with young people in need. Every partner country, after taking into consideration the aforementioned criteria, will select from its candidates the most suitable and promised ones.

With all these said, the number of participants of every country will be as following:

• Greece: 3 participants
• Turkey: 3 participants
• Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 3 participants
• Romania: 3 participants
• Iceland: 3 participants
• Netherlands: 3 participants
• Spain: 3 participants
• Italy: 3 participants
• Sweden: 3 participants

Impact

First of all, we foresee to make our participants better on dealing with unemployment of young people. This is our primary goal, as crushing unemployment is the main aim of this project. The participants will develop their professional as well as their personal profile, expand their knowledge, acquire new and innovative ideas to implement in their daily work and learn how to better approach young people in need and become their mentors in their way to stabilize their life and find a job that keeps them satisfied.

Secondly, we foresee to develop the partner organizations and improve their work and their fame in the field of combating unemployment. The participants involved will become great assets for the partners and will definitely bring value to them. New projects will be implemented and new ideas will be developed. Also, our partners will make new contacts across Europe and will discuss new collaborations in the field of Erasmus + and beyond. All these, make an important opportunity for the partner organizations that wouldn't have the chance to grab it alternatively.

Thirdly, young people that are in need will, also, get benefited. Those people that are finding it difficult to get a job and they get challenges everyday, need help in order to effectively focus in their goal and bring their fears to an end. After the project, participants will be more equipped and ready provide any kind of support to young people and guide them to this path of job hunting. Through all the activities and the dissemination planned, we aim to make a small but important change in the field of young unemployment and bring our societies a step forward.

Target Group of the Project:

Coordinator:

• ANAPTIXIAKO KENTRO THESSALIAS - Greece

Partners:

• ASOCIATIA PENTRU DEZVOLTARE SI CULTURA MURES - Romania
• ASOCIACION CULTURAL Y DEPORTIVA LAHOYA - Spain
• SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS AND SOCIAL INNOVATION CENTER SKOPJE - North Macedonia
• FOXPOPULI - Sweden
• MEZITLI ILCE TARIM VE ORMAN MUDURLUGU - Turkey
• CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE DELL'EDUCAZIONE E LO SVILUPPO ASSOCIAZIONE - Italy
• Stichting Drawing to Health - Netherlands
• KREFJANDI FELAG UM RANNSOKNA OG NYSKOPUNARSAMSTARF - Iceland