"BACKGROUND The tourism industry is a key sector of the EU. It is, in fact, over 10% of EU GDP (including the linked industries) and employs 9.7 million people and 1.8 million companies. In our country, the industry has, as a whole, about 191.000 businesses and, on 31st December 2015, 886.000 employees, while in the two regions covered by the project (Sicily and Calabria), between 2015 and the third quarter of 2016, employment in the tourism sector has recorded an average increase compared to 2013-2014, by 3.8% in Sicily and 2.7% in Calabria. The data and projections show, however, on the one hand, the expansion of the sector and the tourist attractiveness of the two regions and, on the other hand, emphasize the need to provide trained young staff, highly qualified and able to respond positively to new and high competence requested by the local labor market. OBJECTIVES In line with the objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy and ET 2020, WORK AWAY offers young participants the opportunity to test and deepen their curricular competencies: professionalism in the specific sector of TOURISM, soft skills, cultural knowledge and language skills. These general objectives are pursued through a mobility experience which consists of an internship abroad of 1 month for 96 STUDENTS attending CLASSES IV and of 3 months for 80 newly graduated of the 8 participating VET Schools (Technical Institutes for Tourism and Hotel and Catering Schools). The project also promotes the exchange and transfer of good practices in VET by relating our VET system with the training and employment system to other European countries and contributes to the consolidation of the ECVET System. ACTIVITY 1. Transversal Activities: management and coordination; Dissemination and exploitation of results; Follow up; 2. Mobility Preparation: Plan of communication and cooperation; Recruitment and selection of participants; preparation of participants; Learning plan definition; 3. Mobility Realization: Internship in the company; Monitoring and tutoring; Project feedback and experience of mobility; Assessment, certification and validation of skills acquired. METHODOLOGY in 4 PHASES 1. MANAGEMENT PLAN AND MONITORING: the project is coordinated by IIS ""Moncada"" in close collaboration with other 16 partners of the Consortium. The Plan is based on the EQAVET quality system and includes specification on: financial arrangements, timing, names of managers / representatives of each organization, responsibilities, roles and tasks, project phases with related milestones, risk management procedures. 2. PLAN OF LEARNING AND EVALUATION: the learning and evaluation plan contains specific references and commitments on transparency and recognition of competences in an ECVET-compatible framework. The documents are: Learning Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The quality of the experience of mobility is controlled through regular evaluation questionnaires filled out by participants, mentors and tutors. 3. PLAN OF COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION: it provides for the involvement of all participants in the partnership with effective tools and rules to maintain a high level of interest on the project. 4. STRATEGIC PLAN FOR DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION: includes phases and methods to be adopted by all partners to disseminate and exploit the project and its results all over the duration and behond. EXPECTED RESULTS a. The development of highly specific and innovative skills in the tourism and catering sector; b. More competitive and greater employment opportunities in the labor market for the participants; c. The development and innovation of VET systems. IMPACT The project includes a significant impact on the VET Systems through: learning outcomes achievement of participants to mobility; skills acquired from the staff involved in the project; recognition of skills in an ECVET-compatible framework. It represents also an added value and development opportunity for the participating organizations, which will consolidate a new training segment to complete the technical and vocational education and answer the demand of enterprises of high professional skills. LONG-TERM BENEFITS In the long term, thanks to the dissemination tools developed and to the size and importance of the consortium, it is expected to have a multiplier effect both regionally, and at national and EU level and the orientation of public policies on the base of the results of the project, using in addition, as a standard model, all procedures and best practices developed within the Project."