“I cannot and will not accept that Europe is and remains the continent of youth unemployment. I cannot and will not accept that the millennials, Generation Y, might be the first generation in 70 years to be poorer than their parents.” (Junker Speech State of the Union, Sept. 2016) ‘Europe's future depends on its YOUTH'. Yet, opportunities are limited while youth unemployment, marginalization and social exclusion are threatening Europe's greater asset for the future: young people’s human and social capital. There is still great need for MS “to continue to work together to improve their employability, their integration in the labour market, their social inclusion and participation". (EC 2015) Effective Youth Work and non-formal learning empowers young people and encourages their active participation in society. It equips them with skills, competences and experiences for life, thereby maximising the protective factors which enhance the development, well-being, autonomy and social inclusion of all young people, including those with fewer opportunities. The developing role of non-formal learning has been widely acknowledged by the EC 2012 OECD 2013 in the form of Youth Work (YW) offered on voluntary basis within open synergies between various stakeholders, fields and sectors. The Council Resolution on A New Skills Agenda for an Inclusive and Competitive Europe (21/11/2016), reflects a common vision about the role of skills for jobs, growth and competitiveness. Skills can help to secure jobs and enable people to fulfil their potential. They are the key to social cohesion. In a fast-changing global economy, they determine competitiveness and the capacity to drive innovation.. People need a broad set of skills to fulfil their potential both at work and in society. Acquiring skills is a lifelong process and starts very young, and continues to be strengthened throughout life, and allow people to thrive in fast-evolving workplaces and society, and to cope with complexity and uncertainty. The DC4JOBS project comes to join the efforts of MS to promote the digital literacy among young people and fight skills mis-matches and young unemployment. It proposes to introduce a transparent, multi-regulated and multi-assessed process, based on an interactive and dynamic platform to be developed, for young people with fewer opportunities in order to up-grade, up-skill or re-skill their digital competences to meet the needs of labour market and bridge the gap related to skills mismatches between education and training and the world of work. The direct target group is YOUNG PEOPLE 16-24 yrs with a specific focus on young people with fewer opportunities (including NEETs, young people at risk of marginalization and young people with a migrant background, including newly arrived immigrants and young refugees, early school leavers etc.) who will acquire or upgrade their digital skills related to employability, whereas the indirect target group is the labour market, who will benefit from digitally literate young people through the provision of high quality non-formal learning, as well as the various organisations whose members will be educated and well equipped to fight unemployment. The consortium consists of partners, from 6 EU countries which cover a wide range of expertise. A geographical balanced representation, as well as representation from different types of organizations to meet the needs of the project, as shown in the distribution of tasks/roles (NGO, NPO, SME in ICT, VET Provider) is ensured. All organizations possess the skills and competences required complementing each other. The partners share a particular interest for professional development and for promoting the EU research in the field of youth. A wide range of activities, outputs and results are planned to be delivered during the 24 months of the project, ranging from a desktop survey, an interactive portal for training purposes, a selection of on-line and f2f training for digital skills acquisition and a strong and structured dissemination and exploitation strategy for sustainable results.
“I cannot and will not accept that Europe is and remains the continent of youth unemployment. I cannot and will not accept that the millennials, Generation Y, might be the first generation in 70 years to be poorer than their parents.” (Junker Speech at State of the Union, Sept. 2016) ‘Europe's future depends on its YOUTH'. The main objective of this project is to promote digital literacy, while fighting skills mismatches and young unemployment in Germany, Cyprus, Netherlands, Latvia, Spain and Romania. This objective was reached through a multi-assessed e-tool (https://dc4jobs.tucampusdeformacion.com), based on an interactive and dynamic platform which we developed, for young people with fewer opportunities in order to up-grade, up-skill or re-skill their digital competences to meet the needs of the labor market. Until 30.10.2019, we have received 160 unique id in the e-learning platforms, which used our platform and helped us to improve the quality of the materials used. In order to support young people in their search for employment, the aim of this project was reached by equipping them with employability skills (Pilot testing) and by building bridges with the labour market through the creation of the on-line and in-house “DC4JOBS - One-Stop-Support-Centre’ which offers services developed in the project: i.e. DC4JOBS SKILLS AUDIT, professional ICT training for re-skilling and up-skilling of digital skills and career guidance integrated in the existing organisational infrastructure. To set up the DC4JOBS NETWORK where various organisations, stakeholders, agencies, public services etc. offer guidance and advice for future employment, by using various materials developed throughout the project. The direct target group is YOUNG PEOPLE between 16 to 24 years old, with a specific focus on young people with fewer opportunities (including NEETs, young people at risk of marginalisation and young people with a migrant background, including newly arrived immigrants and young refugees, early school leavers etc.) who will acquire or upgrade their digital skills related to employability, whereas the indirect target group is the labour market, who will benefit from digitally literate young people, as well as the various organisations whose members will be educated and well equipped to fight unemployment. Through these intellectual Outputs we have achieved: 1. Implementation of the Professional upskilling Programme for young people and utilize, test and revise all products. 2. All partners have organized ICT training (face-to-face) as needed to support young people' digital acquisition and employability skills. 3. All partners have organized and set monitoring and assessment guidelines to collect feedback, views, case studies, observations etc., both on-line and on-paper. 4. Designed and produced a short GUIDEBOOK for participants with all relevant information about the project and its implementation. The teaching materials developed within this project have been tested and piloted with on-site piloting courses in each partner country, where we tested the benefits and effects of the materials, to improve the modules by each partner organization. The materials also contain various non-formal educational methods and tools that would further improve the quality of the youth work in Europe, and beyond. After the project ending, DC4JOBS SKILLS AUDIT needs to be more capitalised in each partner countries through continuous skills development and personnel of each organisation will be fully utilised. We hope that products developed from this project will be further used to improve the work of the organizations.