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Keys to employability - soft skills development for empowering young people
Start date: Jul 5, 2015, End date: Jan 4, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The main project activity, the Training Course “Keys to employability – soft skills development for empowering young people” took place between 8th -15th of September 2015 (plus 2 days for travel, in total 10 days between 7-16.09.2015) in Aghveran, Armenia. 27 youth workers(plus 2 trainers from ICRLD) and youth leaders from 11 countries (Poland,Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Moldova and Germany)gathered to discuss and explored new approaches to work with young people at risk of exclusion from labor market and the potential of soft skills trainings as a method of enhancing employability. Educational systems in contemporary Europe are facing many difficult challenges. Every year many young people graduate from high-school or university with an often high level of theoretical knowledge, but at the same time they lack practical skills that are essential on labor market. As we live in a time of economical crisis and the unemployment rate among young adults is alarmingly high, many of those graduates struggle to find a job and are not able to start a successful career. As this problem has been widely acknowledged among organizations working with unemployed young people, there are various projects helping them developing competences essential in the process of entering labor market. However, in many cases the youth workers still focus on hard competences and do not pay enough attention to developing soft skills, which are equally important. We believe that young people can become much more successful both in personal and professional life when they master certain set of social abilities.Our Training Course was designed to gather youth workers and leaders and provide them with an opportunity to explore and experience some new methods of developing soft skills that can be used while working with youngsters in their local communities. They had a chance to go through an intensive training during which they tested several practical tools that aim at fostering various skills and abilities, such as team work, leadership, effective learning and others. In the second part of the Training Course participants have also attended some sessions aiming at teaching them how to help young people find alternative forms of employment, using and promoting the concept of international youth mobility. The specific objectives of the Training Course was as follows:- To equip youth workers and young leaders with tools and methods designed to develop soft skills among unemployed young people- To provide participants with an opportunity to exchange experience and expertise in the field of preventing and fighting unemployment against youth- To discover and explore the potential of international youth mobility as one of the opportunities for young people to start and develop their career- To establish a network of like-minded organizations and individuals who are interested in the future cooperation in the field of enhancing young people employability- To develop follow-up projects on employability and unemployment that will make use of the new knowledge and competences gained during the Training Course The Training Course improved the competences of youth workers in the field of unemployment and employability. They was able to implement the new methods in their work with young people and therefore to multiply the outcome of the training cycle. On a long term it will lead to a close cooperation between the participating organization and the development of follow up project further exploring the new approaches to enhancing employability.
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