EVS as a Tool for Combating Youth Unemployment

More and more young people struggle to get a job. The percentage of unemployed youth is steadily increasing, especially during this time of economic crisis. Youth in Action has made it a priority to tackle this issue in 2010. One way is by providing young people with the opportunity to gain work experience by joining an EVS project. Not only do the youth gain work experience, but they also learn to live independently in a different culture. From experiences and research we know that many volunteers struggle with transferring their international experiences into competences and skills they can describe in a meaningful way for their future careers. This training will provide youth workers with the tools to support volunteers in this process and to stimulate their self-awareness before, during and after the EVS project. The main goals of the project are to: Train youth workers on skills and methods to increase self-awareness of EVS volunteers and to facilitate the transfer of self-awareness into marketable competencies, thus improving the youth’s chances in the job market, Share knowledge of National and European job markets, skill discovery methods, learning cycle methods, reflection methods, interview techniques, CV writing techniques and more, Improve the use of the Youth Pass and methods to make it more useful and youth-friendly, Develop a toolkit with strategies and methods employed during the week to spread throughout each partner’s network, Maximize the use of EVS experience in the fight against youth unemployment! You can find a detailed schedule for the activities in the attached documents.