"In a context where too many young people leave school prematurely, the project ""Mediterranean New Chance network : a network for the successful integration of young NEETs"" strengthened the key skills and social inclusion of these early school leavers, thanks to the identification and sharing of innovative, replicable and result-oriented initiatives and methods , as well as good exchanges between VET staff.This 18-months strategic partnership (September 2018 – February 2020) was part of the Mediterranean New Chance network that brings together actors working for the socio-professional integration of young NEETs in the Euro-Mediterranean area. This partnership was made up of six French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese organizations, which have shown their ability to help the integration of early school leavers with vocational training. This project enabled to share and promote their successful experiences through a process of trainings and exchange of good practices at the Euro-Mediterranean level.On the long term, the impacts are the social inclusion of more low-skilled or early school leavers, but also the reinforcement of the cooperation between these organizations and the territorial and national institutions, who can then incorporate those good practices into their education policy.Concretely, the partners used the following means and tools:* Exchange of good practices and trainings during 5 conferences and transnational meetings organized by and for the members of this partnership and the Mediterranean New Chance network* Creation and diffusion of 2 guides of good practices, including 1 platform of podcasts, presenting the best practices related to the socio-professional insertion of the young NEETs in the countries of this strategic partnership and of the Mediterranean New Chance network. Those tools are open-access and intuitive.*Creation and diffusion of 1 literacy review that gives concretes context data and presents the challenges of NEETs integration in the Mediterranean region* Improvement of the quality, reliability and transmission of information and communication between the members of the Mediterranean New Chance network; and the presentation of reliable and quality information related to early school leavers who benefitted from the project.*Advocacy actions that enabled the Mediterranean New Chance network to be recognized at the Summit of the two Shores in 2019."

"The Erasmus+ Soft skills project is part of an approach that facilitates access to soft skills for people with low levels of qualification in order to accelerate their professional integration. Indeed, mastering a professional activity does not only suppose the implementation of technical skills specific to the job (hard skills), it also relies on the mobilization of soft skills. To this end, the partnership has developed a method as well as pedagogical tools for the training and the evaluation of soft skills. The European Commission works with EU countries to strengthen the common framework of key competences, in other words knowledges, skills and behaviours that will help the learners in their personal fulfilment and, later, in their job search and participation in civil society. These key competences consist of ‘traditional’ and ‘horizontal’ skills. At a time when the world of work is changing profoundly and the global economy is not creating a sufficient number of jobs, there is a growing emphasis on those ‘horizontal’ skills. Indeed, employers want their new employees to have both good interpersonal and technical skills. Those “soft” skills are human skills, personality traits and know-how-to-be. In this context, the development of ""soft skills"" is particularly important to enable people with low qualifications or disabilities to meet future challenges. In its current form, vocational training, based on a formal organization, does not meet the expectations of people with low levels of qualification who often do not have access to formal training. It is therefore essential to develop a new vision of training and to add the acquisition of ""soft skills"". This is the goal we had when developing this Erasmus + Soft skills project. Our main objectives were the followed one- to associate soft skills and appropriate pedagogical approaches of alternative education and personal development, - to create pedagogical tools for technical supervisors and people with low qualifications or in a handicap situation - work on soft skills evaluation methods9 European partners active in the field of vocational training and coming from France, Belgium, Spain, Austria and Slovenia wanted to respond to these objectives and together they co-constructed innovative solutions to make soft skills accessible to people with a low level of qualification and/or in a situation of disability. For example, the following were created- The European catalog of soft skills references which gives an overview of the soft skills approach followed by the project: it contains the list of soft skills defined within the framework of the project, the levels of acquisition and their definitions as well as a description of the process of acquisition of soft skills and of the positioning and evaluation which are linked to it- The training kit enables the preparation and implementation of soft skills training in any organization and with any learner. It describes the training method and program in detail and provides training summary sheets by level. It also provides suggestions on the pedagogical tools to use at each stage of the training or the posture to adopt as a trainer. - The Soft skills pedagogical toolbox presents a collection of more than 80 tools that can be used to train in soft skills. The tools are based on the experience of the project partners. The training kit suggests their use.- The soft skills positioning and evaluation protocol provides all the keys to evaluate and certify the acquisition of soft skills. It describes the different moments and methods of training and gives tools to evaluate correctly; All our tools have been tested with our target audiences, i.e. trainers and people who are far from employment or in a handicap situation. Thus, a first virtual mobility allowed us to train in English 14 trainers coming from the respective structures of each partner in the use of the Soft skills tools. The 14 trainers indicated that they wanted to integrate the Soft skills tools in their daily work. In a second step, these same trainers were able to test the training in their respective structures. Thus, 98 people who are far from employment or in a handicap situation were able to follow at least one soft skills training. 70 of them could be evaluated and 62 validated the level of soft skills they were trained to. Our tools have been made available to everyone free of charge on our digital educational platform www.softskills-project.eu and have been disseminated on our social networks, our web pages and during our dissemination events."

"<< Background >>By 2050 and even in North Africa alone, no less than 300 million young people will enter the labour market (World Bank data). If the current unemployment rates of these same countries, which for example exceed 35% in Tunisia in 2019 (World Bank data) do not decrease, nearly 90 million young people will be unemployed. The situation in European countries, particularly southern Europe, is also alarming, with for example youth unemployment rates close to 30% in Spain or Italy in 2019, and 19.4% in France (World Bank data). As detailed in the literature review of the Mediterranean Network New Chance (MedNC) (conducted as part of the previous MedNC strategic partnership), school drop-out and lack of access to training are among the structural causes of these integration difficulties. In its 2016 ""Panorama of Society"" study, the OECD highlights the lasting negative effects that periods of inactivity and unemployment in early adulthood can have on people's lives: reduced employment and income prospects, a barrier to the decision to leave the parental home or start a family, etc. The OECD also stresses the impact of these phenomena on poverty, particularly in the absence of adequate public assistance. Access to the autonomy of a large number of young people is thus questioned, and beyond employment, their social and civic integration. These difficulties also weaken society as a whole, both socially and economically and politically. High unemployment, poor workers, lack of opportunities for decent training or employment, too much predominance of informal work, gender disparities are all obstacles to people's social and professional development, economic development and social cohesion.At the same time, companies also have high expectations in terms of skills, areas of expertise, soft-skills or mastery of technological innovations; and often struggle to recruit. Integration schemes are constantly seeking to adapt to these requirements, in order to optimise the employability and opportunities of young people to enter the labour market, but also to meet these economic needs.It is in response to these shared challenges on a Mediterranean scale that the actors of this project, all members of the Mediterranean New Chance Network (MedNC) which brings together 220 training centres and represents more than 54,000 young people in the Mediterranean, have formed this cooperation partnership. Designed as a transnational platform for the exchange of know-how, reflecting on innovative methods and civil society's actions in relation to the needs of the productive sector, this cooperation partnership will contribute to strengthening the capacity of actors in socio-professional integration in the Euro-Mediterranean area, formalising and valuing and giving access to their expertise for professionals of young people integration and mobilising all the actors in the region around this theme. Finally, more cross-cuttingly, this project will contribute to the strengthening of the skills of its partners in terms of remote project management and governance of a consortium with 12 members and 9 associated partners.<< Objectives >>The project aims to strengthen the capacity of actors working to reintegrate young people in difficulty of integration in the Euro-Mediterranean region through exchanges and transfers of expertise, to capitalise on their profiles, experiences and complementary skills, with the aim of replicating these good practices, and bringing them to the attention of states so they integrate them into their national policy, spread them, and then guarantee a better access to training and employment for all young people in a sustainable way. The overall objective of this project is therefore to strengthen the social inclusion of young people in difficulty of integration by strengthening Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and the skills of teaching and vocational training staff, with 4 defined sub-targets:-Strengthen the technical and cross-cutting skills of MedNC members to improve their support for young people in difficulty of integration;-Formalize and facilitate access to probative and relevant information, resources and expertises to all members of the partnership and vocational training and integration professionals of the region in order to share and spread projects and best practices in the Euro-Mediterranean area;-Mobilize, raise awareness and convince public and private actors to inspire a strong commitment to the professional integration of young people in difficulty of integration in the region;-Improve cooperation, cross-sector coordination and governance within the cooperation partnership.<< Implementation >>The global objective is to strengthen the social inclusion of young people in difficulty of integration by strengthening the cooperation and skills of education and vocational training staff in the Euro-Mediterranean area. A range of activities will be implemented to achieve these goals. In order to improve the quality of the work, activities and practices of the organizations and institutions involved, the MedNC partnership proposes to organize learning events for teaching staff and non-teaching staff, such as professors, teachers, technical trainers and other staff working in participating organizations. These events will be part of annual MedNC network conferences in Tunisia, Portugal and Rome (bringing together more than 80 actors of professional integration in the Mediterranean each year) and will consist of numerous sessions of exchange of best practices and expertise, training and visits to innovative devices. In addition, 3 other learning events will be organized as expert missions that will bring together 5 participants in a partner structure in one of the project countries to identify and appropriate new practices or methodology that they can replicate in their home countries.The deployment of a catalogue of training courses, coupled with the introduction of a digital platform for exchanges between youth integration professionals, will enable many professionals to benefit from the experiences, knowledge and best practices of the members of the strategic partnership. One of the objectives of this partnership is to make information available, free of charge, in order to optimize the resources, time and support of experts in teaching and vocational training. The latter will be able to replicate approach and good practices that have been proven before in similar geographies and contexts and thus strengthen the support available to young people in difficulty of integration. The Pro-Partnership also has a guide that will bring together all the best practices and recommendations of members in terms of integrating gender into the ""2nd chance"" devices. This guide will be available online, including but not only on the Erasmus + sharing platform and will benefit as many people as possible.Enhancing the visibility of the strategic partnership requires the development of an appropriate communication strategy to different target audiences with key messages and relevant and adapted tools. At the same time, the partnership will unite stakeholders around key ideas and concepts, such as digital access, which will be addressed in an advocacy document. This publication will be disseminated to the public stakeholders of the concerned countries and within the appropriate platforms, with the aim of having its recommendations integrated into public policies. Finally, for the partnership to be recognized over the long term and develop sustainably, at least 10 dissemination events will be organised to improve its visibility.In order to improve the cooperation and coordination of the strategic partnership, three transnational project coordination meetings will be organized to bring members together and define strategic directions. They will be coupled by remote monitoring meetings to provide an update on the progress of activities, the collection of indicators and the implementation of a monitoring/evaluation of project results. These three activities will improve coordination and strengthen the governance of this strategic partnership, which aims to remain sustainable after Erasmus funding.<< Results >>This project aims to improve the social inclusion and employability of young people in difficulty of integration which are supported by the member structures of this cooperation partnership, and ultimately, of the young people support by all the actors of vocational integration in the Mediterranean who will benefit from the results and from the cooperation dynamic thus instilled to better respond to the challenges of unemployment and young people integration in the region. The expected results of this project are strong, especially in terms of impact:- at the local level: through the strengthening of the skills of the field actors what will have a direct impact on the quality of young people support, and through the sharing and dissemination of the results of the project by each structure within its own network, which will promote synergies.- at the national level: with a strengthening of the mobilisation of public and institutional stakeholders on the 2nd chance and the integration of young people theme, which ultimately leads to a greater consideration of these issues in public policies, a better recognition of type 2nd chance solutions and ultimately a decrease in youth unemployment rates regionwide.- at the international level: a more structured and coordinated response on a Mediterranean scale through the formalisation of the expertise of all the partners and enhanced cooperation between actors as well as a better recognition and visibility of the challenges that exist around the socio-professional integration of young people.11 specific and concrete results have already been defined in the project: -3 special learning events with all the partnership and external stakeholders, as part of the annual MedNC network conferences, each with four best practice exchange sessions, a one-day training session and field visits. -3 expert missions will be organised for the benefit of at least 5 participants each, who will travel to the structure of another partner of the consortium in order to discover, identify and get to know a new methodology or innovative practice, appropriate it and potentially replicate it in its own structure.- 1 training catalogue will be created and disseminated, in which members will propose trainings and thematic expertise to be transmitted to any professional of the topic. - 1 digital exchange platform will be designed, allowing to reference expertise, gather educational tools and get to know the structures that are working in the field of vulnerable young people integration in the Mediterranean area.-1 good practices guide on gender integration in 2nd chance schools in the Mediterranean will be elaborated and disseminated. -1 advocacy paper will be drafted and disseminated towards public authorities, highlighting the dangers of the digital divide for young people's schooling and presenting the related investment needs.-At least 10 dissemination events will take place across the 9 countries of the consortium by 2024. -1 revised communication strategy will be operational. -3 2-day transnational meetings in Marseille, Alexandria and Barcelona will take place to determine annual priorities, strategic orientations and activities for the coming year. -6 follow-up meetings will be held remotely, with the aim of monitoring the progress of the project and collecting the follow-up indicators.-1 monitoring and evaluation of the project will be put in place to measure the proper implementation of the activities and the impact of the project on direct and indirect beneficiaries."

In relation to the Europe 2020 strategy, the project addresses the themes of social inclusion, employability, the active participation of young people in the civil society, training and youth work. In particular, in relation to the seven flagship initiatives for the European contribution to the Europe 2020 strategy that aims to stimulate progress in terms of growth and employment, our project is based on the second flagship initiative “youth on the move”. The target of our project is made up of young people who lack of basic competences due to social, economic and geographical barriers. Hence, the target may include young individuals involved in training or young Neets. Developing mobility paths abroad and improving basic and transversal competences is particularly difficult for this specific target. The project had multiple objectives. First of all the project tried to develop the 8 key competences in the emotional, cognitive and social field among young low-skilled Neets while ensuring an intellectual, inclusive and sustainable growth. Moreover, one of the main objectives was to promote the mobility of young people aboard in order to increase their employability, allow them to have the same possibilities as the other young people, reduce the social gap between the different groups, acquire the fundamental international and intercultural vision for the development of life skills and guarantee the validity and the quality of these people’s employability. The project involved 15 partners belonging to 6 different countries with expertise in the fields of education, social inclusion, youth employment and in the relations with local businesses and organizations. Under a quantitative point of view, more than the 882 originally planned participants were involved.The main activities that were implemented are: -the creation of a network: contact and research of training entities, companies at the national level and training agencies able to organize and support the various steps -the development of a platform in order to manage the network and create a link between young people, social entities and businesses. -the organization of 14 multiplier events in the 6 countries involved in order to present the 2 IOs.-in the framework of the second IO, 11 creative meetings took place with the participation of young people and training managers in order to understand how to organize the mobility for the project target; creation of the content of the guide-the organization of 5 days of training on the content of the guide dedicated to youth workers and to those responsible of the aspects related to the training. -the organization of the mobility of 16 young people in order to put the methodologies into practice. The initially planned results were achieved. Under a qualitative point of view, we have created a working group and we have established a dynamic of exchanges between social entities and economic organizations in order to organize and plan mobility projects dedicated to low-skilled young people, thanks to European and national funds. The young people who participated in the mobility developed their life skills and triggered a mechanism of innovation and qualification that is reflected in the territory of origin. Finally, there has been a professional development of those who work or are active in the fields of education, training and youth through the training period that took place on the basis of the guide established within the project. The feedback that we received through the analysis of the resource sheets provided by the guide was very positive. The impact generated was both short and long-term. In relation to the short-term impact, the most important effect was the one on young people and on youth workers who participated in the mobility and in the training. For the social entities, being able to get in touch with other European organizations and to get to know other businesses willing to welcome a young NEET was fundamental. As far as the long-term is concerned, the impact mainly concerned the creation of a mechanism of development and activities production that aims to promote social inclusion and the employability of low-skilled people. Another impact to be highlighted is the one on the project partners since it allowed us to acquire further competences, to develop new collaborations and design new project proposals in order to ensure a follow-up and sustain the ongoing actions. The project results reflect the EU strategy for youth by 2027 as well as its priorities. Thanks to the instruments designed within the project, we can promote a youth work that promotes quality, innovation and the recognition of youth work in order to support the young Neets in their journey towards inclusion.