ESF-SI-2023-SKILLS-01-0102

“Digital works for youth” project aims to combine best practices of digital realm and personal, tailored in-person activities to empower vulnerable youth, especially NEETs, in scale. It will be done through a sequential set of activities – mentoring, training and job speed-dating events. They will be improved by mentee in-person meet-ups as well as local and international training bootcamps. The project will have two cycles with all of the activities in Latvia and Romania, each lasting 9 to 11 months. These activities will improve youth’s confidence levels, skill development and validation, and employment prospects. 

The key principles of this project are: 

• the scalability of this project, due to the digital nature of this project; 
• personalisation of the content for the youth, which allows for youth to feel in control of their lives; 
• close integration with employers, bringing youth closer to real-life employment situations. 

The main innovation of this project lies in successfully and intricately integrating the past innovations from Visas Iespējas project Go Remote and Bucovina Institute’s project SEPAL. Go Remote provides the required know-how on online outreach, mentoring, training, and speed-dating events. It provides first approaches on how to involve people digitally. At the same time, SEPAL provides a personal touch towards all NEETs, even the most disadvantaged ones, and showcases the crucial personal touch in outreach, mentoring, training and preparation for the workforce, ensuring that each person feels truly heard and understood. Our ambition is that after the successful piloting of this project, through collaboration with corporations and public bodies, we will be able to scale this project nationally and internationally.

Expected results:

• Involvement of 600 unique vulnerable young people.
• Providing mentoring to at least 240 people.
• Providing training to at least 360 people.
• Reintegrate around 120 people in the job market via speed-dating events and mentorings.

Funding: 495,113.00 Eur

Both the “Go Remote” and SEPAL projects represent scaled social innovations aimed at tackling youth unemployment, albeit through different approaches and target groups. “Go Remote” was focused on leveraging the shift towards remote work to create opportunities for marginalized youth in Latvia, Cyprus, Croatia, and Bulgaria through digital training and online platforms. In contrast, SEPAL addressed NEETs from vulnerable groups in Romania, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, and Poland by developing and scaling an apprenticeship-based model incorporating social enterprises and local stakeholder engagement to enhance their competencies and facilitate employment.