Within the province of Limburg, Genk has one of the highest numbers of families in which the mother has had little to no schooling. This is in great contrast to the rest of Flanders. In Genk, pupils often do not have the possibility nor the opportunity to gain professional experience from their home environment. Poverty is a great concern within our area and we want to help families in Genk. We strongly believe that participation in the Erasmus+ project would significantly contribute to a better future for our underprivileged pupils. Our main objectives in this project are the introduction to the logistics and healthcare processes abroad, the development of responsibility, self-reliance and the further development of their language skills. In these economically challenging times, we believe it is extremely important to provide our underprivileged pupils with learning opportunities that will allow them to grow personally and professionally, today, tomorrow and for the rest of their live
One of the priorities of Atlas College, a secondary and higher vocational education school in Genk (Belgium), is to enable pupils to develop into independent world citizens with a critical mindset. During their specialization year for logistics employee and nursing science (HVE) pupils and students are trained to become highly qualified workers. The main goal of the program is to reach a high competency level, and the bar is always set high for our pupils. Using this framework, we can deliver employees that offer great potential for quality and could have a rapid integration into the labour market, especially in an internationally oriented economy. Given the fact that our often underprivileged pupils with an immigration background foreign roots mostly do an internship in their own city, this project is the ideal way to give them a taste of the logistics and healthcare sector outside of their comfort zone.