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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
LINK Academy is an extension of the successful Social Impact Academy project, which the CoWorking Banská Bystrica implemented in 2019-2021 thanks to the ACF - Slovakia grant program. The Social Impact Academy offered the opportunity to active young people from the region of Banská Bystrica to use their talent and turn an idea into a real project and thus help the local community. In the first phase of the project, more than 140 young people acquired new knowledge and practical skills during two modules. The Young Leader Course module was focused on the development of soft skills. In the Incubator module, participants created small work teams with the possibility to invite classmates or friends and work on the implementation of their own public benefit project on the topic of active citizenship and social innovation. The project promoters decided to continue the project with the intention of enabling young people to learn by working on real assignments and tasks, to solve real problems of organizations and then to see the results for the community. The current project aims to connect not only former participants of the Social Impact Academy project, but also new participants of the project and thus continuously build an alumni network of graduates of this educational program. The participants themselves worked in several project teams on pre-assigned tasks from partner organizations. The mentioned activities moved the participants to the next, higher level of project management.
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, as well as their more successful application on the labor market. The goal of the project was to help at least 30 young people with the development of their key competencies such as entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity, who complete the entire educational cycle. It is intended for graduates of the Social Impact Academy project, high school students, university students and people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The educational program will be implemented face-to-face and online. Each participant goes through 10 educational workshops.
The aim of the project was also to build an alumni network of graduates of the previous project with the aim of "packing up" and inspiring other active young people interested in helping the local community and thus passing on the acquired knowledge and skills.
The main goal of the LINK Academy project was 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 was 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 was implemented offline and online. Each participant went through 10 training workshops. Another goal of the project was to create an innovative educational web platform and thus provide young people with systematic access to education. The online platform serve as a freely available tool for non-formal education.
Another goal of the project was to create an innovative educational web platform and provide young people with systematic access to education. The online platform serve as a freely available tool for informal education. Participants was be able to get the necessary information, learn, network, connect, get more inspiration and help from mentors in one place. The online platform is a place where freely available online courses, lectures, methodologies and inspirations are concentrated in order to complement, renew, extend or deepen the qualifications acquired in school education. They improved their skills and acquired new knowledge, which enabled them to apply their own ideas in practice and start successfully implementing their own projects. The project was implemented in 2 shifts. The implementation of the project was planned from November 2021 to December 2022. The output of the project was the solution of at least 10 tasks from partner organizations and the project ended with a big event - Hackathon, which will be open to the public. During the Hackathon, the participants solved the task from the partner organization that received the most votes in the public vote and thus help one of the organizations directly within 24 hours.
The LINK Academy project ran from November 2021 to March 2023. The project promoters managed to implement 7 rounds of the educational and development program, which a total of 217 young people went through. 3 high schools in Banská Bystrica participated in the project, namely the J. Murgaš High School, the Business Academy and the High Vocational School of Hotel Services and Business. 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 project promoters held the 1st Banská Bystrica hackathon. The project promoters 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, we also recorded 16 podcasts with inspiring people. Another output of the project is an innovative educational web platform that provides young people with systematic access to education. The online platform www.linkacademy.sk serves as a freely available tool for informal education. Participants can access the necessary information, educate themselves, network and gain further inspiration.
We see the positive impact of the project 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.