21/11/2022
Italy
participants
Our main goals were:
- Recognising mobility programs and volunteering as opportunities to acquire skills, knowledge and improve the employability;
- Making volunteers able to ‘translate’ their experience in ESN into training and professional history;
- Making the entrance of ESNers into the job market smoother by fostering relationships with institutional partners
- Sharing best practices and know-how among organizations;
- Allowing volunteers to get in touch with professionals, learn from them and get inspired.
Following the steps of the path that had already started, this year ESN Italy decided to continue developing the association's engagement in the area of employability through a series of institutional meetings focused on the impact that both mobility programs and volunteer experiences have in the acquisition of skills that can be later invested in the labor market. In addition to providing training sessions aimed at improving the transversal skills of our volunteers and mobility students, with the aim of transferring knowledge that can also be exploited in the professional field, the Activity and Training Manager and Skills and Employability Officer of ESN Italy, organized and moderated two conferences on the topics of student mobility and youth engagement as tools to improve employability. A remarkable focal point of the conferences was the involvement of external professionals, University representatives and public institutions, because we had the opportunity to get in touch with diversified experiences and points of view on how youth engagement can affect employability.
These initiatives took place in the framework of the Job Week and “Salone Nazionale dello Studente”, which are respectively a career and university fair organised by Campus Orienta. Their aim is supporting students on their way out of high school by providing them with the best tools and the most useful advice, as well as a comprehensive overview of careers in education and employment. The Activity and Training Manager of ESN Italy moderated a conferences on the question of how volunteering and community service experiences have a strong influence on skills and employment opportunities for young people. While, the Skills and Employability Officer moderated a panel on the opportunities of the third sector, as ESN Italy is among those associations in Italy that are facing a transition in terms of social recognition. Last but not least, the opening conference of our National Training event had also a similar focus: capacity building.
The three conferences were the following:
1. “Youth and international dimension - Life-changing skills and opportunities. Mobility and volunteering in the international arena: how do they affect young people's skills and employment opportunities?”
2. "Close encounters of the third sector - Skills and opportunities that will change your life"
3. “Capacity Building in the Erasmus Generation - Why the Erasmus+ programme, European projects, intercultural dialogue and volunteering are essential to enrich not only the personal background of young young Europeans, but also their CV”.
This initiative was further developed by sharing with our local sections and volunteers opportunities such as career days and job fairs in which they could join both as participants and as testimonials. In particular, the online Job Week took place twice this year (May and December), and with the help of the Italian Pool of Trainers, ESN Milano IULM, ESN Bologna, ESN Venezia, ESN Torino,ESN Modena, ESN AURE Camerino, ESN Messina, ESN ASSI Parma, and ESN Roma Tre joined with no-formal education and peer-to-peer sessions on the soft skills that you can acquire through mobility or volunteering in international organizations like ESN.
