Empowering NEETs across Europe: a peer learning approach

The first day of this activity was for the arrival of participants in Madrid, Spain on 22nd of January. Three people from each country (Greece, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain) came with the same interest to learn about NEETs groups around Europe, share the conditions and data of their country and come up with useful solutions and activities. The official meetings started on 23rd of January, when all participants got to know each other, present themselves, their work and their organization. So, after we understood a little bit about each other background, the facilitator presented the project and the desired outcome of it. For the first activity of the day, we tried to analyze NEETs groups of each country and in order to achieve that we used as a tool the SWOT analysis, which is a great tool to visualize and make groups of the data you want. After the facilitator explained what is a SWOT analysis and how it works, each country worked in groups and prepared the analysis about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the NEETs group, that each country is interested in.  The second activity of the day, was a debate about ICT skills, new technologies and where is the blockage for NEETs. The facilitator made some questions and each participant freely on their own shared an opinion or an example, that led to conclusions, such as: How much young people that live in a modern world with advanced technology are digitally empowered, what blocks them to use their ICT skills to re-enter education or find a job etc. After our launch break and for the last activity of the day, each partner had prepared a presentation on demography of young people and NEETs in the digital space in their country. And this activity was very interesting, because we found out how different reasons lead to the same problem. More specific all of the participated countries have NEET groups, but one because they don’t have digital skills to begin with, other because they don’t have available jobs to absorbed them even thought, they have skills and other just because young people are not interested in digital empowerment.

 

On 24rd of January we meet again another day of activities. We start our day with exchanging of country-based best practices. For this session each county had to present a practice related with our topic, either a project or an activity that will help or already helped a NEET. Some interesting projects was mentioned such as Jovid, a platform that aims to create new opportunities and make easier for young people to find a job. Another activity and the main outcome of the day was the creation of a non-formal activity that will boost digital activation of NEETs groups in each county. We worked in groups and each country has to prepare a doable activity fully detailed that would specifically help the target group of each country. After some time and our launch break, we presented our work and many good ideas came out. Some of us chose to call an influencer to school in order to boost the interest of young people in digital empowerment. Others chose to create a project that will provide more digitally based jobs in order NEETs to use their skills. Others wanted to spread awareness though web-seminars and others suggested a digital “fair” in order people from rural areas still have a chance to better opportunities. This day closed with practical recommendations towards a digital strategy for each youth organization. Each organization that wants to help this target group has to become an example, so we came up with basic digital practices that they have to follow in order to be updated and ready to help.