The SEPAL Project (2017-1-058 – Supporting Employment Platform through Apprenticeship Learning) is a project that aims to create an innovative model for job insertion of 300 NEETs minimum, gathering five partners from five countries around Europe, namely Bucovina Institute (the Lead Partner from Romania), Pere Closa (Partner 1 from Spain), ZISPB (Partner 3 from Lithuania), KoiSPE Diadromes (Partner 4 from Greece) and Collegium Balticum (Partner 5 from Poland). SEPAL’s target group consists of the young people, especially the NEETs that are aged between 24 and 29 years old, belonging to various vulnerable groups such as: mental/physical disabled, at risk of poverty, migrants, Roma and low skilled/without experience, succeeding to have, at the time being, more than 300 NEETs that benefit from our support services and a big percentage having the status ”employee”.
Our partnership approach it was, first of all, to implement the SEPAL innovative model within our organization. After six months of the project, we managed to have a final version of the SEPAL toolkit and we had decided to create the first job for the selected NEETs within Bucovina Institute Association.
More than this, the Lead Partner, Bucovina Institute from Suceava, Romania offers WISE (Work Integration Social Enterprise) services, being licensed for the following: information and professional counseling services and mediation services on the internal labor market. We are an NGO and a registered Social Enterprise, having all the specialist needed to support employment: psychologists, trainers, vocational counselors and coaches.
In this regard, the WISE experts within the SEPAL Project started, after the mid-2019, to work with the NEETs and to offer free support services such as: information, evaluation, counseling, coaching, mediation, involving them in volunteering, apprenticeship, internship or learning on the job programs and after six months receiving a certificate of being part of our program.
In this article, we want to share with you one particular success story of one of the first NEETs registered in the SEPAL Project – Alina’s story. After finishing the Bachelor’s Degree studies in the field of Social Work, she has decided to continue her studies by enrolling in two Masters programs: one in the field of School Counseling and Emotional Intelligence and the second one in European Management and Administration. After graduation, she was motivated to find a job, but she found rather difficult the process of identifying the right workplace for her, she did not know where to start, she did not have enough courage, and the most important, she needed support and motivation.
Therefore, she was a NEET when she found out about the SEPAL Project in October 2019, being the perfect definition of our target group: a young person aged between 24 and 29 years old (being 26 years old at that moment), who is no longer in the education system and who is not working or being trained for work (she was looking for a job after finishing her studies) and last, but not least she is part of one category we intended to support during the implementation of our project, persons with disabilities, having a physical disability which does not represent a major obstacle in carrying out her daily activities, but she is more suitable and willing for office jobs.
A few days later, she registered on the SEPAL Platform https://www.projectsepal.com/ and was contacted by one of the WISE Experts working within the project at that time, being scheduled for a face to face meeting, on 12th of November 2019. During the first meeting, Alina was informed about SEPAL, she benefited from the initial evaluation and she was vocationally profiled, establishing future steps in her path of finding the ideal job.
The Bucovina Institute’s team observed her educational and professional background (she had no official work experience, but she was involved in volunteering activities with children and adults with disabilities), her potential and her strong desire to find a job and she was called for an interview. She decided to remain starting that day, beginning with a paid apprenticeship stage, period in which she learned, she communicated and she showed her interest by getting involved in all the activities carried out within the organization. Therefore, we considered that she was suitable for the position of vocational counselor within SEPAL project, having educational background in this area. In other words, after four months of training on the job and validation of her competencies, on February 2020, we signed the labor contract with Alina, as one of our colleagues, WISE expert within SEPAL project.
Alina, during a counseling session with one NEET, in May 2020, when she returned at the office, after 2 months of remote working.
After being in our six months program, in June 2020, Alina was evaluated by her employer and got a certificate for successfully finishing it and after less than three months, she was invited in the management team of the SEPAL Project. Therefore, starting from September 2020, she is the Communication Manager, having excellent competencies regarding the communication, taking, the responsibility of coordinating the communication department. Her main tasks are the following: organizing online events, online management meetings, communicating with the partners, writing articles, press releases and newsletters and promoting our activities on social media.
More than this, she has been working for more than a year at Bucovina Institute, coordinating the communication and social media part in our organization, running an internship program entitled Social media and communication strategies, but also being involved in the implementation of a large number of Erasmus+ projects, working with partners from more than 22 EU countries and
We met Alina 18 months ago, starting her journey as a NEET and managing to bring great value to Bucovina Institute Association, but also a validation of our innovative approach SEPAL.
In the conclusion of our success story, it is necessary to mention that it is based on several important aspects such as the following:
- A correct evaluation of the potential of the young people;
- An opportunity for learning soft skills within your organization, first of all;
- Adjustment to the NEET’s needs of the environment where he/she carries out the learning at the job stage;
- Placement of the NEETs in the Social Enterprises in order to carry out their learning on the job stages with the support of one multidisciplinary team, when needed;
- Offering support even after the employment, because the NEETs need advices at the beginning and support concerning the soft skills development;
- Using a standard system for evaluation of the progress and offering him/her the chance to advance at the workplace;
- Talking louder or praise one NEET for his/her performance in order to build self-confidence and trust;
- Making a pleasant interaction with your services, which can be the first solid pillar for a young employee during his/her life and development.
