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Islanders - Capitalising on Tourism to increase the employability of young people with fewer opportunities
Start date: Jan 1, 2016, End date: Dec 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

This project under KA2; Strategic Partnerships will bring together young people from four islands; Malta, Azores (Portugal), Cagliari (Italy) and Crete (Greece). Apart from the fact that we are all islands, therefore also disadvantaged due to the double insularity, with a small population we also share a common concern; the growing percentage of young people who are NEETs. Although we will be using the same methods to target the NEETs within our society we will be focusing on different target groups. Malta will focus on young people with social and economical difficulties that have spent most of their years in an institution and may not have the same access to education, training and employment. The Azores, Crete and Cagliari will focus on youth unemployability due to the recent soaring percentage rate in this area. This project will take place over a period of two years starting from January 2016 and will target 40 young people that are NEETs.In order to equip the young people in these islands with competences that will make them more employable we will be providing them with skills related to the tourism sector. This is an important sector for all four islands since it provides a big share of the national GDP and thus it might be easier to find employment in this area or utilise the skills obtained to further their studies. Through this project , the young people will also receive entrepreneurial skills with the ultimate aim of making this project self-sustainable. It is also for this reason that the Institute of Tourism Studies have been roped in as partners in this project since they can provide professional training to the young people.This project will consist of two main phases divided into smaller phases to create more manageable and tangible tasks . In the first phase, the young people will receive skills and training related to the tourism sector, how to be entrepreneurial and how to manage an enterprise successfully including project management, customer handling and marketing. Part of their training will also consist in learning a second language or if it is the case a third one. The young people will also receive training on how to use social media, how to build a website and make use of other promotional material which will not only increase their digital competence but will also serve to kick start the process for the second phase of the project. Thus, this project will involve specialised training from ITS staff, the NGOs will recruit youth workers who will be in direct contact with the young people and will also include a web developer that will aide the project achieve the target sets as intellectual outputs. Phase 1 will finish with the young people in each country coming together and explore what activities they can pursue in the tourism sector which are attractive for tourists and which once the project is over they can be sustainable and remunerable. In the second phase the young people will be putting in practice the new skills and knowledge received and hence the young people will advertise their services, receive bookings and once the tourists arrive in the country organize, manage and oversee the activities. This project will also include three transnational project meetings that will contribute to the preparation, implementation and evaluation phase of the project. In order to be able to implement the project, the young people will be meeting in Malta for a training. All the information gathered through this project and the promotion of the project itself will then be uploaded on a dedicated website. A press conference will conclude this project in which Prisms will be inviting the media, participants, residential institutions in Malta, MHRA and other NGOs to share methods used and also present outcomes. The impact of this project will primarily be on the young people participating since they will increase their chance of employability through the new skills and knowledge received. The project aims also to be self-sustainable once the funding period is over since the young people can continue running the tourist services and can start operating as a social enterprise.
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