FGE-Galicia News

22/11/2014

Fundación Galicia Europa brings the European initiatives on youth employment promotion closer to students in Vocational Training

• Representatives from Fundación Galicia Europa, in collaboration with members of the EURES network, are organizing and celebrating information seminars in Vocational Training centres in the four Galician provinces

• These four sessions take place in the framework of a European project supported by the Representation of the European Commission in Spain

Santiago, 22 November 2014.- Fundación Galicia Europa organises a series of four seminars in Vocational Training centres in the four Galician provinces during this month of November. The main objective of these events is to bring the European framework of Vocational Training closer to students, but the seminars are also intended to present the existing initiatives towards entrepreneurship and to provide examples of training opportunities for youngsters abroad.

In this sense, two seminars took place this week with students from Vocational Training centres of the Galician cities Lugo and Vigo, which will be complemented with the two remaining seminars in Ourense and A Coruña next week. These four events count on the participation of representatives from Fundación Galicia Europa, the European employment network EURES and some former students from these centres who have participated in mobility programmes and who will present and explain their experience living and working abroad. Moreover, these seminars include a workshop on job search techniques, with the aim of helping students in their future access to the labour market.

These events are part of the project titled “Vocational Training’s European dimension”, launched by Fundación Galicia Europa in coordination with the Xunta de Galicia’s Directorate-General for Education, Vocational Training and Educational Innovation and with the support of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain.

The project has been developed by Fundación Galicia Europa during 2014 and it meets one of the Fundación’s action pillars, the one of training and raising awareness of the EU in Galicia. Thus, all the actions executed are focused on spreading the EU policies and initiatives in terms of employment, mobility and entrepreneurship among students, graduates and teachers in Vocational Training (VET). The main objective is to encourage integration in the labour market through the promotion of mobility and entrepreneurship, as well as through a higher involvement of teachers in those initiatives.

“Vocational Training’s European dimension” took its first steps with the main event held at the Integrated Centre for Vocational Training of Santiago de Compostela on the 14th of May 2014, aimed at VET teachers and advisors. Experts from the European Commission, Xunta de Galicia and the private sector presented and explained the initiatives implemented in their fields that favour youth employment and entrepreneurship. Besides, several representatives from VET centres working on European projects and entrepreneurship shared their best practices and experience in managing these topics in order to foster a higher involvement of teachers.

The four decentralised sessions taking place during this month of November try to complement the main seminar bringing all the information directly to students.

Local events from the European Week of Regions and Cities 2014

It must also be said that the seminar celebrated in Lugo is part of this year’s Open Days, the European Week of Regions and Cities, an annual event launched by the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions which took place this year in Brussels between the 6th and the 9th of October. The organisation of Open Days fosters this kind of local events in the EU regions and cities since 2006 with the objective of gathering authorities, representatives from the private sector, non-governmental organisations, students and members of the civil society all over Europe in order to discuss European issues with the EU citizens.