Description
The project will provide young adults with tools that will facilitate their access to the labour market, while promoting equal opportunities and social inclusion. A key element of this training process is improving the ability to work in multicultural contexts and reinforcing skills such as tolerance, creativity, open-mindedness and resilience. The initiative will strengthen soft skills, digital literacy, teach young people to write a résumé adjusted to the labour market, promote actions that present young people to active life and instil a proactive and caring attitude towards job-seeking.
Summary of project results
National and international studies show a huge mismatch between the expectations and the preparation of young people and the expectations and needs of the employers. This is particularly evident at the level of cross-cutting competencies. This imbalance is aggravated in young people from disadvantaged contexts. While, on the one hand, vocational schools and polytechnic institutes have shown great competence and success in mobilising young people from vulnerable contexts and at risk of dropping out of school, helping them to stay or re-enter the training path, on the other hand, it is not easy for them to respond to all the demands that this type of young people need. The solution goes through equipping partner institutions with tailored responses to train and promote skills that enable them to adapt to the demands of the labour market. As a result of the project 9 395 vulnerable young people were trained on employability (hard and soft skills) and 371 on entrepreneurship. 9 training actions were organised for trainers and 92 training actions were organised for young people across Portugal, involving 413 schools and enterprises and 284 trainers and professionals. The project targeted the entire country but has concentrated actions on the North region (41.6% of total) and the Centre Region (51.7%). The project comprised formal and mostly non-formal training, open days on companies, social inclusion actions for the most vulnerable young people as a condition for employability and promotion of civic participation to strengthen empowerment and citizenship values. The project was a significant source of learning for all project partners due to the diversity of target groups (young people of different contexts, ages, education levels); their trained staff and the manuals produced should ensure replicability and sustainability to the project. Managing such a wide number of partners across the country was a major challenge, successfully met.
Summary of bilateral results