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Inter Cultural Learning as a means for developing ..
Inter Cultural Learning as a means for developing employability skills of national, ethnic and linguistic minority youth
Start date: Aug 1, 2016,
End date: Jan 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
According to the recent figures released by the International Labour Organisation, the number of 16-24 year olds representing different linguistic minority groups in the EU countries and being in NEET situation (not in education , employment or training) for more than a year has risen by 30% over the last 5 years.The number of young people from a linguistic minority background who have been out of job , education or training for more than a year is constantly increasing (despite the fact that overall long-term youth unemployment has actually decreased by 1%). So while the economy is apparently doing better, that's not actually what's happening for young people from linguistic minority communities.The innovativeness of this project is in its aim to promote social inclusion and active youth participation by empowering peers to address these issues in their immediate daily peer group environment of different linguistic minorities suffering from unemployment and social exclusion.The youth exchange will involve 12 participants and two leaders from each of the partner groups in the UK, Belarus, Turkey and Azerbaijan and will take place in Baku Azerbaijan for 12 days.The target group for this exchange project are young people from linguistic minority families who face employment, educational and /or training difficulties, including those with a difficult social/economic background. This target group have fewer opportunities to participate in any exchanges and get intercultural understanding. They do not possess sufficient resources to get international experience. But empowering them to set socially valuable goals and giving them instruments to reach these goals will make our partner European communities healthier, more human and inclusive.With this project we want to promote non-formal ways of communication between groups of linguistic minority young people coming from different European countries. In the midst of the constantly increasing unemployment rates among young people in Europe, there arises a need for innovative strategies aimed at improving young people's chances in the labour market. In the modern world where many organisations work on a multinational level, their future employees are expected to have competences which will enable them to work in an international environment. They are Inter Cultural Learning (ICL) Skills.Many young people get important practical skills in formal education establishments, but at the same time they often lack certain intercultural communication skills. Such skills are also essential to build a successful career. Besides, as modern societies are culturally diverse, the ability to successfully cooperate with people with different cultural backgrounds became a truly important both in private life and in the professional field.Therefore, our partnership discussed an opportunity to undertake this International Mobility Project involving a specific target group - young people from national, ethnic and linguistic minority groups - in order to provide them with a basic set of essential inter cultural communication competences that will both boost their chances in the labour market and contribute to their social and cultural development. Our Youth Exchange will be focused on developing employability skills of national, ethnic and linguistic minority youth and enabling them to explore inter cultural learning (ICL) principles. At the same time, non-formal education methods will be promoted.A balanced set of theoretical and practical sessions will enable the partnership to achieve the objectives set for the project. These objectives include:- Sharing realities and exploring the existing situation with unemployment of national, ethnic and linguistic minority youth;- To find common ground in the issues related to inter cultural learning as the key to employability and development of such skills;- To find possible ways of including national, ethnic and linguistic minority youth in social life by developing their inter cultural learning and social skills;- To discover the effect of inter cultural learning on numerous aspects of a young person’s life;- To discuss and understand how social inclusion and employment policies in the participating countries influence us as citizens;- To discuss how non-formal education can positively influence youth employability and to discover examples of best employment practices related to young people having national, ethnic and linguistic minority background;- To empower participants to become active citizens;- To encourage the young people to become examples to their peers;- To present the Erasmus+ programme and to encourage the creation of future projects with young people having national, ethnic and linguistic minority background as the target group.After the Youth Exchange the participants will be encouraged to act as multipliers, applying the newly obtained knowledge with their peers in their local communities.