The project "New Professional Worlds in European Citizenship" in 2019, before the pandemic, was intended to provide a professional internship in a European country to 19 young trainees from the 11th and 12th years of the Professional Courses. the observation of pedagogical methods in European institutions that develop professional training for young people. Our young 19 participants would be between 16 and 19 years old, coming from Vale do Ave, a deprived region in the north of Portugal. We requested 9 companions so that at each destination, on the outward and return trip, there was a teacher for each group. This point was very important because our students didn't even know the procedures involved in traveling abroad. They were young people who were preparing for professions related to design, the arts, sports and laboratory analysis. The courses they attended provided for 610 hours of Workplace Training (internship) in companies or institutions in their professional area. The Project would allow the internship to be carried out abroad with all the professional, social and linguistic gains that the stay abroad provides.
We are a in a school with Professional Education. We are applying for this project to respond to the need to spread the European dimension of our citizenship and to open up professional, cultural and social horizons in our young students. In today's Europe, contact with a new culture, with a new language is assumed as a a need that enhances equal opportunities, making it possible for young people from more unfavored socio-economic classes to have work experience in the international market. With this project, this opportunity was given to young people who were clearly socioeconomically disadvantaged. It was a concrete response financed by European funds aimed at a social stratum always forgotten. Mobilities provided direct contact with diverse human and professional knowledge.