Project "European wetland ambassadors" undertakes two European challenges: - to provide quality training and to offer very ambitious and sustainable professional perspectives to people currently excluded from labour market and who are integrated through work economic activities (long-term unemployed people, young adults excluded from school system, low-skilled seniors); - to protect and promote natural wetlands and European rivers. This objective is supported by the application of the Water Framework Directive, by which European authorities and Member States must (1) manage, pollution control and prevent natural hazards, as well as (2) inform the public. To meet all these challenges, project partners intend to establish and test a new set of competences, in addition to competences and training already acquired within social insertion organisations acting within the field of sustainable development. Within already existing training topics undertaken by active social insertion organisation on wetland development, this framework of competences fosters the new job "European wetland ambassadors" while adding new themes such as environmental mediation, knowledge about wetlands, ecological engineering. The European cooperation within the project will be of important added-value compared to the existing experiences because it will : - provide a common response to a dual common European challenge (wetland quality and long-term unemployment); - give access to a diversity of European practices and situations; - enhance recognition of this new profession within a common framework, fostering equivalences and mobilities. The project will be supported by a partnership of 7 organisations from 6 different countries (Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). Each of them have complementary skills and statutes: representative of public decision makers, local authorities in charge of wetlands and rivers development and who are potential recruiters of “wetland ambassadors”; representatives of training organisations, who will contribute to give the profession specific reference and validation; and finally representatives of social integration organisations which will enable to test, to validate and to give credence to the project intellectual outputs and results. Different complementary activities will give national and European validation and recognition to the new Core Competency Reference Guide : - development of reation of a job reference system, with a detailed list of associated skills, based on a detailed report of existing practices, needs, contexts, issues and references at European level; - production and validation of a training framework and training content associated with this job reference system, - Production and validation of the qualification and skills validation framework and system; - test of training activities, during a transnational workshop for trainers and 6 local training sessions for integration groups. All in all, 22 trainers and 100 people in employment integration process will benefit from these innovative training techniques tailored for public in insertion with specific needs; - communication actions and dissemination of results for recognition of the conducted work and the emergence of this new job at European level and at the 6 partner countries level. In the end, project expected impacts will be at different levels : The target groups will benefit from stronger professional integration thanks to upgrade of their training and profiles, to easier access to higher level of training courses such as " management of natural areas " or “environmental education”. European economic integration organisations will offer higher expectation and quality to support their beneficiaries. European local authorities will benefit from improved level of services related to wetland and river maintenance and development that they have to manage.
The AMHE project aimed to improve the qualification of Europeans engaged in processes of reintegration into employment through economic activity, whether it concerns integration schemes as they are practiced in France or in Italy (contract training-work) or projects of general interest mobilizing the long-term unemployed as they are practiced in Spain or Greece for example. More specifically, it aimed to improve the training and employability of people in integration mobilized in operations of general interest geared towards the preservation of the environment and in particular towards the enhancement and protection of European wetlands and waterways.
The "Ambassadors of European Wetlands" (AMHE) project was promoted by the Community of municipalities of South Corsica Communes and a transnational consortium including integration and training organizations, and organizations active in the maintenance of natural wetlands, from 7 countries members (FR, GR, PT, ES, CR, IT). This consortium has worked to meet a dual challenge: * the growing demand of European citizens for the quality of the environment, the strengthening of the regulatory framework for water quality, the implementation of the Natura 2000 network, the pressures linked to climate change, require maintenance and increased management of the quality of wetlands. * the increase in long-term unemployment in most European countries, mainly affects the least educated citizens, led to reintegration programs. The AMHE project jointly responds to: - the needs of managers of wetlands by providing them with a new profession, allowing more expertise and versatility in their missions, for a better cost/efficiency ratio. - the needs of people in integration by providing them with better qualifications, more versatility, improving their employability.