ESF-SI-2023-SKILLS-01-0076

Ready 4 Work is a social innovation initiative aiming to establish volunteer mentoring as a new impactful form of learning to empower and upskill vulnerable youth during their transition to employment, whether from education or inactivity, increasing their employability and quality of life, complementing traditional employment interventions as vocational training or career guidance, establishing public and private partnerships to scale and sustain it, and enhancing community engagement, solidarity and helpfulness through volunteering. 

This social innovation is based on Autoocupació’s successful mentoring program for young entrepreneurs, built from the Youth Business International experience, scaled across Catalonia and Spain through public and private partnerships and across Greece, Italy and Poland through the Young entrepreneurs succeed project funded by the EEA & Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment. 

This successful mentoring methodology will be adapted to vulnerable youth needs to engage with the labour market, piloted and assessed through a proper impact assessment framework and disseminated to promote its implementation in other regions and countries. 

The Ready 4 Work consortium is formed by Autoocupació, which will implement the intervention in Catalonia (Spain) supported by Barcelona Activa, ANKA, the Development Agency of Karditsa, which will implement it in Thessaly (Greece) supported by the Regional Managing Authority, and the European Microfinance Network, which will provide mentoring and impact assessment expertise and lead the dissemination and knowledge transfer at EU level. 

Expected results:

• Improved Employability for Young People: Enhanced soft skills, confidence, and motivation, leading to better job-seeking outcomes and educational/vocational choices.
• Engaged and Sustainable Mentor Community: Motivated mentors share expertise, fostering sustainable mentorship and promoting intergenerational knowledge transfer. 
• Strengthened Social Cohesion: Increased community involvement and relationships across social groups, building trust and social responsibility among young people. 
• Scalable Mentorship Model: Development of mentoring as a replicable tool to support and integrate unemployed and inactive youth. 
• Comprehensive Impact Assessment: Mixed-method evaluation to measure mentee and mentor progress, inform best practices, and enhance program effectiveness. 

Funding: 269,385.00 Eur