First SC meeting of the project entitled “Young graduates and the Social Sector: developing new job opportunities”, in the framework of Progress programme

On 19^th  of February 2013 the first international meeting of the project entitled “Young graduates and the Social Sector: developing new job opportunities”, was organized at Altavilla Vicentina, in Italy, where 13 people participated on behalf of 7 partner organizations from Czech Republic, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The CUOA Foundation of Altavilla Vicentina as project coordinator submitted the project proposal in 2011, in meantime the initial budget was slightly reduced and the project was selected for financing, thus it will be implemented in the period of 23 January 2013 – 23 January 2014.

The strengths of the project is given by the fact that it joins partners, who represent different fields of activity, in this way local public administration authorities, NGOs and educational institutions are equally participating in this project, Harghita County Council being the partner from Romania.

The objective of the project is to analyse the situation of the young graduates and to detect job opportunities in the social sector, to create new job opportunities to fill the gaps and assists young people, to assure mutual knowledge and experience exchange among the partners through study visits in order to give suggestions for decision makers to create new regional policies in the field of social cooperation and youth policies.

In the framework of the first international meeting one of the partner institutions the CNCA (Coordinamento Nazionale Comunita di Accoglienza – Federazione Veneto) presented the concept and organization of social cooperatives, their activities. This is a well-developed, non-governmental initiative in Italy, which acts against social exclusion, promotes solidarity, assists community building, deals with child protection and with the problem of social disadvantaged people.

Their experiences and good practices could also be shared in Harghita County in order to stimulate the establishment of social and youth cooperatives, to assist new job creation for young graduates taking also into consideration the local specificities.

During the project meeting all partners presented their activities and roles, then discussed the joint tasks and further steps, financial and management issues for the successful implementation of the project “Young graduates and the Social Sector: developing new job opportunities”.

 Miercurea Ciuc, 25th of February 2013