On 4th of February 2021 Youth for Social Changes organized the online conference “Presentation of One-Stop-Shop youth employability model” in the framework of the project “My career from zero 2 hero”.
The conference gathered together representatives of the Government of Albania, public institutions, civil society organizations, business sector, and media to talk about youth employability in Albania and innovative tools to solve this issue.
Around 100 participants got to know with the results of the mapping study in Albania related to the employment of youth NEET and the innovative model “One-Stop-Shop” for youth employability.
The Executive Director of Youth for Social Changes, Mimoza Ikonomi, opened the online conference by presenting the project, main aim and objectives. She emphasized that youth capacity building needs to be addressed by a wide range of actors, inside and outside the education institutions. She mentioned that civil society organizations in Albania play an important role by focusing on non-formal education, through the provision of courses, training and other community activities, in order to increase the soft skills of young people.
Then Deputy Minister of Education, Youth and Sport, Ms. Aspasjana Kongo, made a presentation of programs and policies dedicated for youth and initiated by this ministry. She mentioned that particularly as regards the NEET group, there is still no concrete plan for training and employment promotion. Such focus will be given by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in the next action-plan for the forthcoming years 2021-2025.
During her speech, the Executive Director of the National Youth Congress, Dafina Peci said that the employment of young people should be a priority of the government and every actor who contributes to the country’s economy. “Interdisciplinary roundtables should be the starting point for joint employment promotion plans” added Ms. Peci.
The director of National Youth Agency, Ms. Kleina Kasanai, made a presentation of that agency and pointed out that youth employment will be the main priority of that agency.
Mr. Danjel Guce, director of programs at SME Albania, suggested that the business community should contribute to the youth’ skills orientation not only through the provision of internships, but also through continuous consultations with other actors such as educational institutions, local government units, civil society organisation and with young people themselves.
Session 2: Presentation of One-Stop-Shop youth employability model
Second part of National Conference was presented the mapping study, main findings and recommendations by the researcher, Dalina Jashari.
Then project coordinator, Gentjan Hajdari, explained the one-stop-shop model. This model offers education to young people in the field of digital, soft or essential skills, entrepreneurship, as well as carrier counselling and networking with employers. “50 NEET youth based on their digital knowledge will be divided in two groups and will follow programs that offer this model”, mentioned Mr.Hajdari.
He explained that this model was developed in line with the needs of NEET youth and the labour market based on the results of mapping study by a group of experts from different fields.
Then experts introduced shortly each service of the model. One-stop-shop youth employability model include:
- Youth outreach
- Transferable skills course
- Digital skills course
- Entrepreneurial skills course
- Online tutorials for digital skills
- Career counselling
In the end project coordinator mentioned that this model will facilitate the transition of young people from the education process to entering the labour market, offering the whole set of services in one place.
Panel discussion
In this session it was enabled a participatory process of the participants where they give their suggestions and comments how to improve the “One-stop-shop” youth employability model. The need to involve more youth than is targeted on that project, focused on local communities in Albania was emphasized by participants during this session.
One of the participants expressed he sees this model as right approach to youth employment due to the fact that youth policies are often not in line with the real youth needs and challenges and lack the identification of their socio-economic needs and their expectations regarding employment.
The conference is part of a regional project entitled “My career from zero to hero- Strengthening networks of Western Balkan CSOs to implement one-stop-shop youth employability model for future jobs of 4.0. digital revolution”, implemented in Albania by Youth for Social Changes – YSC (Albania) in cooperation with the Centre for Youth Work (Serbia), Centre for Youth Education – CEM (BiH), TOKA (Kosovo 1244/99), Forum MNE (Montenegro), with financial support from the European Union and implementation of the project is supported in each country by: Montenegro – Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Montenegro; Serbia – Swiss government through project “Education to Employment – E2E“ which on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, is implemented by Social Inclusion and Poverty Unit (SIPRU).