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Description
The LINK Academy project is an extension of the successful Social Impact Academy project, which was implemented in the years 2019 - 2021 thanks to the ACF - Slovakia grant program.
The main goal of the LINK Academy project is to create a comprehensive educational and development program in order to support the development of social and professional competencies, as well as their more successful application in the labor market. The aim of the project is to help at least 30 young people develop their key competencies such as entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity, who complete the entire training cycle. It is intended for Social Impact Academy graduates, high school students, university students and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The educational program will be implemented on-site and online. Each participant will go through 10 training workshops. Another goal of the project is to create an innovative educational web platform and thus provide young people with systematic access to education. The online platform will serve as a freely available tool for non-formal education.
The role of the first partner of the Centrum dobrovoľníctva, n.o. is to cover the expertise in working with volunteers who will be participants in training seminars, especially in their placement in partner organizations, in which they should apply their acquired skills. The role of the second partner, Seymen Kompetanse, Prosjekt og Produksjon (KomPro), will be in the position of project activities consultant, will participate in regular meetings of the implementation team and will participate in the creation of an online learning platform. His role as a consultant will bring know-how and examples of good practice in working with young people and their education and development in Norway.
Summary of project results
The main goal of the project was to create a comprehensive educational and development program in order to support the development of social and professional competences of young people, as well as their more successful employment on the labor market. The LINK Academy project ran from November 2021 to March 2023. As part of the project, it was possible to implement 7 rounds of the educational and development program, which a total of 217 young people went through. 3 secondary schools in Banská Bystrica participated in the project, namely J. Murgaš Secondary Industrial School, Business Academy and Secondary Vocational School of Hotel Services and Trade. The participants completed workshops on topics such as Presentation skills, Time management, Project management, Copywriting, or Speech workshop. They then volunteered as part of a school project that they devised and planned themselves. The participants of the remaining 4 tours volunteered in selected non-profit organizations, where they applied the acquired skills in practice.
As part of the project, the 1st Banská Bystrica hackathon was held. We approached 3 institutions - the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic, the Banskobystrica self-governing region and the city of Banská Bystrica, which gave an assignment for the participants. The participants were not only young people involved in the educational program, but also the public. Participants had 24 hours to solve a predetermined task related to marketing or IT. During the project, 16 podcasts with inspiring people were recorded.
The online platform www.linkacademy.sk serves as a freely available tool for informal education.
The positive impact of the project is on two levels. The first concerns a specific group of young people who were participants in the project. They improved their skills and acquired new knowledge and competences such as entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity in real practice. The non-profit organizations that provided real tasks were in close contact with the participants and thus showed them the functioning of the organization directly in reality. After completing this comprehensive educational and development program, young people are ready to found, lead a civic association, or start their own project. Another positive impact of the project is the fact that young people are an inspiration for their peers and for their surroundings, which multiplies the impact of the project.
Summary of bilateral results
The project partner was in the position of consultant for project activities, participated in regular meetings of the implementation team and participated in the creation of an online educational platform. He brought know-how and examples of good practice from working with young people and their education and development in Norway. During his personal visit to Banská Bystrica, the project implementers held 1 discussion and 2 workshops. They also organized a discussion with representatives of student organizations from Banská Bystrica. The participants had the opportunity to learn how they work with young people in Norway, what approaches they use. A discussion was also included, where he gave advice to the participants on what can help young people in Slovakia to participate more. The workshops were intended directly for the participants of the educational program, they were a demonstration of how they educate young people in Norway. The participants experienced inspiring workshops and took away many new knowledge. The Norwegian partner brought a new language culture to the project, which helped not only the organizers but also the participants to improve their English language skills. The activities he implemented for the project had a great benefit in sharing examples of good practice of the partner organization from abroad. In addition to active cooperation on this project, he also discussed with the project implementer about other projects that they plan to implement together in the future.