The project ”First Work Experience for Lifelong Success” is focused on increasing employability by supporting learners from Vocational Schools to get practical experience and learn how to apply skills previously acquired in their education schemes. The aim of the project was achieved by placing the learners in 8 organizations for a few-month hands on working experience improving their employability potential. OTB rounded up a number of partner organizations for this project: Center for Intercultural Dialogue (Macedonia) as the Lead Partner, SCI International, Krog (Slovenia), TOG (Turkey), USB (Greece), Youth for Exchange Umbrella (Portugal). The project started in August 2014 and lasted for a year in total, a period during which two key issues obstructing employment were tackled: the lack of practical experiences to gain qualification and increase ones’ employability, and the lack of entrepreneurial attitudes, often limiting people to use the existing opportunities for self-employment.
Some of the concrete project objectives were to offer a practical connection between different institutions and organizations involved in the provision of educational and practical work experiences for people on the labor market. The idea was also to promote the motion of practical work experiences and learning that can be received within them as something which can increase not only mobility, but also lifelong learning of VET learners in the labor market. The practical outcome of the project which was supported by Erasmus+ VET Key Action 1 Learning Mobility of Individuals in the VET Field was to offer a better chance for the beneficiaries to find a job after the project ends. Therefore a specific accent was put on the follow-up stage of the project in putting this experience in the context of a real benefit, especially through acknowledgment of the learning outcomes.