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Description
With the exception of the catering and tourism industries, the Coastal-Karst region offers few employment opportunities. The region is thus less dynamic and diverse as regards employment. In addition, the region offers few opportunities for young people to gain education and experience relevant to employment. There are fewer providers of services aimed at young people, and the local environment is poorly connected with young people. The project targets young people in less dynamic environments. Young people who finish schooling and want to get a job often lack the knowledge on how to approach the matter. Even those who have their own entrepreneurial idea are poorly equipped with appropriate skills. Although young people are good at using digital devices, they may have difficulty in finding reliable sources of information and making sound judgments about the content. Specific groups of young people have additional problems when entering the labour market, e.g. young immigrants who had a regulated residence status in Slovenia during their schooling as minors. The main goal of the project is to make the transition to employment easier for young people and to help them successfully complete this transition. Thanks to the project, young people get the chance to connect with the local environment, new and improved services are developed, and training for professionals working with young people is carried out. The project thus contributes to the improvement of education and a more encouraging social environment aimed at supporting disadvantaged groups.
Summary of project results
The project was aimed at young people in less dynamic environments. In 2020, unemployment increased, most drastically among young people. Furthermore, Slovenia is at the very top of the EU in terms of the share of young people under 29 who live with their parents, which leads to uncertainty and doubts about their own abilities. This project wanted to make the transition from formal education to the labour market for young people aged 14-29 easier, especially in the Coastal–Karst region in Slovenia. The project aimed to equip young people with competencies for easier entry into the labour market and to develop the competencies of professionals who work with youth, who play a crucial role in the career decision making. One of the goals was also to help young people meet the local environment, but also to help the local stakeholders get to know young people and the specifics they are bringing in the working environment.
The project offered shorter and longer workshops and counselling for young people. Youth networking events with the local environment were organised and digital content was prepared. The remote implementation of some events made the project accessible to residents from the hinterland. As part of the project, a digital content that is accessible to anyone was prepared. A chatbot and a profile on Instagram were set up to communicate and answer young people''s questions.
More than 350 young people took part in the career orientation workshops with topics such as writing a CV, the use of social media, how to prepare for a job interview. Within the project, workshops were organised also for young people who are thinking about an independent entrepreneurial path. Topics such as the development of an entrepreneurial idea, how to run a company and its promotion were very useful. More than 180 young people were included in these workshops. Entrepreneurial content was further enriched by content from the field of green entrepreneurship.
Three networking events were organised:
- "Karierijada - career olympics” was attended by young people who first attended career workshops to prepare them for meeting potential employers. They met on speed dates, where young people had the opportunity to present themselves in a consisted yet attractive way. Both employers and young people had the possibility to network.
- The second networking event was dedicated to the counsellors working with young people. They exchanged their experiences and views on emotional regulation in counselling, afterwards they tickled the common issues in a workshop.
- The last networking events was dedicated to young entrepreneurs who tried to plan their entrepreneurial ideas taking into consideration the wider environment – both natural and social. The Donor Project Partner participated in the event with a workshop on green entrepreneurship. Young entrepreneurs took advantage of the possibility to meet and connect with entrepreneurship experts who also attended the event.
In order for the results of the project to keep having positive effects on young people after the project’s end, a number of materials, including a pocket manual that condenses all the content presented in the workshops was prepared, which is freely accessible on the project partners'' websites. Further, educational videos and infographics prepared.
Young people were most interested in the individual counselling offered on three locations. Most questions were about choosing a school or profession, building a career or creating an independent entrepreneurial path. More than 100 young people participated in individual counselling, which also remains available even after the end of the project.
A special added value of the project was the training workshops for 50 mentors and counsellors who work with young people, since they have a key role in offering supports to young people choosing their career path.
In total, the project offered three upgraded services - digital content, career training and business consultation. Young people benefitted from workshops, personal counselling and networking events, while training workshops were organised for mentors and counsellors who work with young people. A digital content prepared will support young people in their career even after the completion of the project. In the long run, the project had an impact also on the local employers who had the possibility to meet young people, understand how they approach the working environment, which expectations they carry towards their employer and their colleagues. Through these meetings, the employers can address their expectations and at the job interviews and provide necessary skils to keep young people in their working environment.
The project''s positive impact reached also the general public and the local community. The project was presented on other meetings and events, online and on the radio, which let to arise questions about the importance of timed career orientation. Several people form the local community attended the workshops and other project events which shows a need for this kind of content also later on in adult life. The importance and lack of career events was recognised also by the municipalities in the coastal area who provided financial support after the end of the project to provide career workshops to local schools by the end of 2024.
Summary of bilateral results
The Donor Project Partner International Development Norway (ID Norway) had mainly a consulting role. It followed the unfolding of the project, helped the other project partners address encountered issues and suggested possible improvements. The project partner contributed also with specific topics, related to green entrepreneurship, which is still a relatively new concept in the Coastal-Karst region. At the end of the project, the ID Norway organised an evaluation meeting where all project partners thoroughly revised the activities and planned future activities taking into account the experience from the NEKSTEP project.All project partners improved their knowledge and are more than willing to use each other’s ideas and materials if a suitable possibility arises. The ID Norway attended the entrepreneurial conference and actively participated with a workshop about green entrepreneurship which was well received among young entrepreneurs attending the event. The same content was later included in the pocket manual and presented in a video. The project partners shared ideas on how to address common challenges working with young people, but above all they learned from the Donor Project Partner and developed a wider understanding on how to include stakeholders in the future projects and how to plan activities to better address the needs detected in the local environment.All project partners agreed on having a cooperation meeting to discuss future collaboration in international projects, but concrete plans are yet to be made.