Youth Employment through Self-knowledge

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Amaç

The project "Youth employment through self-knowledge" arises in the context of the rise of the Covid-19 pandemic, in which there was already some concern and anticipation for the social and economic crisis linked to the said health crisis. Currently, the youth unemployment rate in Spain is 29.6%, and despite the fact that it has fallen by 37.65% in the last year, it has been leading the list of youth unemployment in EU countries for months. Once again, it is evident that the socioeconomic crisis linked to Covid-19 is emerging among young people.

The YES project (Youth Employment through Self-Knowledge) is a mobility project for young people and youth workers, whose main goal was to use the methodology of non-formal education and self-knowledge to empower young people, resulting in learning in entrepreneurship and other tools that favour and facilitate their access to the labour market. In this way, it will try to propose a new methodology to promote the active role of youth, while working on employment issues, youth reality, and professional goals, based on the needs and realities of each young person. The main activity of the project has been the realisation of an online training course with young participants and youth professionals from different European countries.

For all this, the project has been based on walking a path together with the participants in which they themselves were in charge of exploring their realities, their passions and their goals, and how to make of all this their own plan to build their professional future. . This empowerment of young people through self-knowledge has been linked to the analysis of their reality and the reality that surrounds them, working and raising awareness of values ​​such as respect, freedom, democracy or equality, as defended in the Article 2 of the EU Treaty.

The objectives of the project and its evolution have been the following:

-Create a long-term collaboration network between international youth organizations in the field of mental health, youth employment and entrepreneurship
-Develop skills in young people in terms of self-knowledge and entrepreneurship and provide them with resources that help them have access to quality employment
-Generate awareness and knowledge of the reality of each young person, in the dimension of their motivations and abilities, but also in that of the social reality that surrounds them
-Use non-formal education methods to develop skills in entrepreneurship from the perspective of self-knowledge
-Facilitate opportunities for young people at risk of exclusion or with fewer resources through their empowerment and tools for self-knowledge, employment and entrepreneurship.

Uygulama

The activity that has been the central axis of the YES project is the online training course with the same name. The training course lasted a total of 10 days and involved 38 people, including two trainers and a facilitator. The objective of the training course was based on working on the self-knowledge of the participants themselves as a tool to prevent future mental health problems, empower them and discover their motivations and abilities. With this done, we worked with the participants on how to use everything learned to focus on their professional future, empowering them and providing them with knowledge so that they can carry out their own projects in the future, such as entrepreneurship.

The course has been structured, mainly, in three thematic blocks:

1. Self-knowledge. How to know ourselves and take care of ourselves to understand what we want and can do, and how to do it.
2. Youth empowerment and employment. How, through knowing each other, we can empower ourselves and be more active in the social struggle and in the workplace.
3. Entrepreneurship as a tool for social change and entrepreneurial innovation. All this is analysing and debating our own realities and those of the EU in all areas to reach joint conclusions. The vehicular tool that structured the different contents of the course was the "life maps".

The participants of each partner entity were young people or youth professionals, in order to multiply the knowledge acquired and apply it in their immediate reality. For participants, the recommended age was 18 to 35, although there is no upper age limit. Above all, the motivation and ability to disseminate and multiply the results of the participants were valued, which was verified through the registration form that they had to fill out prior to the training course or in previous meetings with the partner entities of each country.

Sonuçlar

The YES project intends, once the training course and all the generated materials have been completed, to create an impact not only on the people who have participated in the project but also on the young population in general, being able to contribute to youth empowerment and the improvement of the problem with youth employment.

If the possible impacts or the desired impacts of the project in different areas are analyzed, therefore, we would speak of that generated in the participants, the partner organizations and in the target groups.

-Impact on the participants. One of the tasks of the YES project has been to select the people who have participated in the online training course so that they could acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to replicate and apply the project in their daily lives. The participation of these people, young people and youth professionals has not been limited only to the training course, but from moments prior to this, they were informed about the subject and the contents, contributing their expectations and vision. In this way, from a time before the course, they have been able to begin to develop skills in analysis and commitment to the project. At the time the training course was carried out, these participants became an essential and active part of the project, generating awareness of it and its objectives. In this way, when they return to their realities, they will have the motivation and desire to implement what they have learned. In addition, all have participated in the evaluation of the project by evaluating and submitting improvements. Therefore, in addition to the impact of the training course, thanks to what they learned in it, the acquisition of teamwork skills, planning and commitment that they have also acquired through making them long-term participants in the continuity of the Project.

-Impact on participating organizations. All the partner organizations of the project have experience in international projects and at least in some of the topics that have been worked on in the project. Despite this experience in the field, which undoubtedly facilitated many organizational and operational issues, from the beginning we have thought that the project can also generate a positive impact on them, which comes from various areas. One of them is, for example, the acquisition of knowledge in which they are not experts, by their staff. Each of the partner entities of the project is an expert on specific topics, all of which are relevant to the YES project, but the deeper knowledge of some in some areas can contribute to those that are not so expert in these, and vice versa. Another positive impact that their participation in this project has been able to generate is the improvement of their nearby realities, which is closely linked to the establishment of a medium-long-term collaboration between all the partner entities. The possibility of establishing a collaboration network that extends over time in the areas of youth employment, participation and self-knowledge, can make it possible for these entities to offer their members and the population in general resources and training in these aspects, which It will help to generate a positive impact on their realities. In addition, with this collaboration, the fabric of networks of European organizations that work with young people and are involved in improving the current reality will be promoted, opening the door to possible future collaborations in line with the values ​​that we defend and that unites us.

-Impact on target groups. The target groups of the project have been young people and youth professionals. The expected impact on these target groups is that, through collaboration with the participants and partner entities, and with the help of the materials created, such as the life map, they can take advantage of the contents and methodology proposed in the project, giving rise to empowered young people and professionals with better employment opportunities.