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ACTION - Unlocking the talents of marginalised youth in a digital media
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Partners of the project :
· E-Juniors, France : coordinator
· Future in perspective limited, Ireland
· Jugend-& Kulturprojekt ev, Germany
· Sihtasutus noored teaduses ja ettevotluses, Estonia
· Centre for advancement of research and development in educational technology ltd, Cyprus
·
Aklub centrum vzdelavani a
poradenstvi, Czech Republic
Despite the recovery of the EU economy after the financial crisis there are certain sub-sets of the population for whom the return to growth has not had any impact of note. In October 2018, the youth unemployment rate in the partner countries participating in this project stood at DE 6.1%; IE 12.2%; CY 19.3%; FR 21.8%, EE 16.7%; CZ 5.1% (Eurostat). While research shows that there is no real long-term impact for short spells of unemployment the scarring effect on young people who are cutoff from society and economy for prolonged periods of time is considerable and can negatively influence the rest of their lives where employment, income and overall inclusion is concerned. Current initiatives endeavouring to address the rate of youth unemployment fall under 3 categories – Prevention – Reintegration – Compensation. The current programmes trying to tackle youth unemployment and reintegrate marginalised youth, especially NEETs are insufficient to address the problem conclusively and new methodologies, resources and interventions are needed.
The term NEET is widely used and understood within the education and training profession. There is however, one slight problem with this classification in that it tends to define young people by what they are not, rather than by what they are.
In the context of the ACTION project when the term NEET is used it is being invoked to refer to young people who;
(a) are on the margins of educational provision due to the failure of formal education provision and who have left school without achieving the necessary competences for employment or levels of attainment for further study;
(b) come from poorer disadvantaged backgrounds where education and training were not prioritised in their early development years and from families with a history of educational under-achievement;
(c) have grown up with digital and social media embedded in their daily lives.
Partners are very specific about the target group of the project because they believe that the reintegration of NEETs will only be achieved through holistic approaches that address the problem issues individually and collectively.
For the target group in question, the ACTION project proposes a three-pronged response framed in a digital and social media production training environment.
1. Partners will focus on developing a suite of action-learning resources that are completely different from the formal provision that has failed in the past. The action-learning resources will use inquirybased, embedded-learning resources to unlock the talents of marginalised youth to build high-value, transversal skills that are essential for inclusion, personal development and employment.
2. The training will be delivered in a ‘scaffolded’ team-learning environment to ensure that learners have the support of their peers throughout the training process.
3. The training will be entirely built in a digital and social media production framework where there are potential roles and opportunities for individuals of all personality types allowing target group members to participate and learn according to their own individual preferences.