"Many young people in Slovenia and other European countries at the moment are having difficulties connected with their employment. Our organization carried out a six-day training for youth workers from different countries (Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia) in order to develop a tool for youth workers, who are working on solving this problem with the help of other experts and to share experiences and best practices in the field of youth unemployment/employability. The training was held in Slovenia, 25-30th May, 2015. We used different methods, such as round tables, presentations, mixed groups; lectures and workshops with specially invited experts. This variety of activities helped the participants to look at the subject from different sides and get not only theoretical, but also practical knowledge.Activities generally followed two main objectives: 1. To get information and knowledge about different situations, that young people in participating countries are facing, including practical examples; 2. To exchange various methods, that youth workers are using to fight these situations and to develop new, useful methods. One of the used innovative methods was also ""Theatre of Oppressed"". In concordance with these main objectives we chose partners in the project.A guide, in which we will gather existing methods of coping with employability of young people through youthwork, and described situations, (young) people are facing on labour markets of different countries, is main result of the training.One of the ideas of project was also to create a network of youth workers from different countries, dealing with the problems of young people entering the labour market. This network could be used for communication between youth workers, exchange of information, good practices and support in critical situations, but also when planning new future projects."

"PARTNERSHIPThe project SPRINT: “Standardize best PRactices about INTernships” started in September 2017 and ended in December 2020. It was implemented by a consortium of European structures representing all the parties concerned by the internships: Higher Education Institutions: HEI (Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University), students (Trade Union Youth Plus), host organisations (The Adecco Group). The partnership was enriched by the expert structures participation in the field of standardisation (AFNOR: Association Française de Normalisation), the supervision of youth mobility in Europe for learning purposes (UNISER), the development of digital tools and the internships evaluation (InternsGoPro) and the promotion of higher vocational education inside the European Higher Education Area (EURASHE). PROJECT CONTEXTInternships play a fundamental role in the integration of students and graduates into the labour market by enabling them to acquire professional skills and to experience host organisation functioning. However, not all internships fulfil their objectives. Numerous initiatives have emerged in Europe to provide quality frameworks for placements, but they are not been applied in all European countries. OBJECTIVESThe SPRINT project has been implemented to create a common European quality framework for internships to be recognised by all the stakeholders (HEIs, students, host organisations) with an effort to improve the supervision of the internship at a European scale and thus enable better integration of the young’s into the labour market.The partners also implemented the project activities to:- establish a strong partnership between organisations working in the field of internships;- raise awareness among stakeholders of the importance of the quality of internships;- encourage host organisations to improve their practices;- prepare the different stakeholders’ training to ensure proper implementation of the internships quality criteria.These objectives have been achieved by the consortium.ACTIVITIES The SPRINT project partners carried out the following activities:> Drawing of a general report on internships’ national legislation in the member countries of the European Union and Switzerland: 182 pages.> Sending out a survey on needs and barriers about internships: 116 participants (HEIs, students, host organisations).> Production of a summary of good practices in internships.> Drawing up of the common European quality framework for internships, drafted and approved following the steps of a CEN (European Committee for Standardisation) Workshop Agreement, under the AFNOR supervision. 8 quality criteria have been identified for internships through the following activities:- Kick-off meeting of the CEN workshop (E1) (17 participants from outside the SPRINT consortium);- Drawing of the CEN workshop agreement (9 participants);- Adoption of the CEN Workshop Agreement with a 60-day comment phase open to any organisation: 28 participating organisations (64 pages of comments);> Drawing of the practical guide on the implementation of quality internships for host organisations;> Development of a self-assessment tool for host organisations on their internship programme; > Production of a guide on the quality of internships and higher education institutions; > Organisation of two training sessions (E2) (in English and French) for HEI teams in charge of student placements to raise awareness of the ""quality internship"" concept and to train them to the tools developed in the SPRINT project framework (96 participants); > Organisation of a conference (E3) aimed at explaining the European policy context concerning the quality of the internship and presenting the SPRINT tools developed to bring a concrete solution to internships improvement in Europe (153 participants).OUTCOME The implementation of the above activities led to the achievement of the following results:- Harmonisation of best practices in the field of internships in Europe;- The adoption of common quality criteria for internships;- The creation of tools for the implementation of these criteria within host organisations;- The development of a coherent evaluation system on the quality of internships valid for the whole of Europe;- The establishment of a working group on the quality internships.IMPACTSThe project enabled the partners to broaden their knowledge about internships in Europe and the pre-standardisation process.The participants in the dissemination events improved their knowledge on the quality criteria of an internship. Stakeholders interested in internships have reliable tools on the quality of internships in Europe."

Several actual and former interns of the participant organizations manifested different problems related to the effectiveness and the real impact of their traineeship/internship. At the same time policy-makers, responsible to shape youth policies, need more informations about the extent and the dimension of these problems. MEET seeks to create a link between them in order to discuss about these issues and find potential solutions to improve interns' conditions. Thanks to the large number of interns hosted and placed by the partner organizations, the consortium developed the following steps, so as to make possible the dialogue between the young people and Policy Makers within the framework of the Structured Dialogue:- Preparation Activities (online debate). With the changing of the partner, Ecepaa's platform, thanks to the coordination of CISPoC, has been the platform where young people discussed instances and the problems, developed proposals and ranked them. Here, the agenda of the meeting has been set up in order to drive the discussion with policy makers. The webPortal had the capability to allow them to vote the best recommendation so as the selection will be automatically done by them. The applicant provided to upload several documents, policies, programmes and other material in order to facilitate the discussion and to raise their awareness about the EU policies in the field of education and training.At least 100 interns participated in this project during the online debate and at 31 out of them joined the policy makers in Brussels.- Implementation Activities (transnational meeting, open discussion, working groups): after the selection of the candidates, the partner organized the travel and the meeting in Brussels that lasted three days. Young people have had the opportunity to discuss among them about how to deal the debate with policy-makers, to meet them and ask their questions. Finally, they have been supported by the participant organizations to develop and draft some recommendations and policy papers to deliver to the policy makers.- Follow-up & Evaluation Activities (online debate): After the meeting the applicant submitted a questionnaire in order to evaluate the level of satisfaction of the participants, meanwhile, young people continued to discuss and to disseminate the results of the transnational meeting to the other users. A final evaluation have been provided and presented to the participant organizations during the final online meeting.All the activities have been led by young people in order to increase their responsibility and their direct involvement to a democratic participation activity. The result has been young people awareness rising of youth policies implemented at EU level. On the other side, the policy-makers involved have been able to better understand some of the challenges faced by the interns. Both the interns and the participant organizations will work together in he future to better developing concrete provisions for the European Label for Quality Internship. Young people have increased their engagement in democratic life, they have developed their multicultural approach, their English language and their ICT skills through the use of the platform.The Ecepaa's platform can be used also in the future for other issues making the project idea sustainable for the long-period.MEET has contributed to improve the link between education and the labour market providing useful guidelines and recommendations made by the interns with the aim to improve the effectiveness of training activities in the future.The project has represented a starting point for a future larger project in this field and its outcome may become an important relevant source for the coming development of EU Youth Strategy.