ESC: Let us tell you: Vocational education is so cool! - 1 year

WorldSkills Romania Foundation is part of the WorldSkills International movement (active in 84 countries) whose mission is to improve our world with the power of skills. It aims to raise the profile and recognition of skilled people, and show how important skills are in achieving economic growth by: - inspiring young people to develop a passion for skills and pursuing excellence, through competitions and promotions; competitions, alongside conferences, are the main ways for promoting skills globally; skills competitions measure excellence, celebrate Champions and encourage hundreds of thousands of young people to turn their passions into a profession; - developing skills through global training standards, benchmarking systems, and enhancing industry engagement; young people are assisted to access trainings and to find new jobs - influencing industry, government, and educators through cooperation and research — building a global platform of skills for all. WorldSkills Romania Foundation is an independent NGO, established in 2016 to support young people professional development for their personal success and for Romania development by: - promoting the excellence in the professional field; - providing relevant learning experiences in various professional areas; - facilitating collaboration between various organizations acting for young people professional development for a better correlation between the education system and the labor market. Our mission is to offer various opportunities for the young people to discover and develop their skills for contributing to a better world. We focus our interventions on three major directions: a) promoting professional excellence by: - selecting and preparing Romania competitors to the WorldSkills International Competitions - organizing skills national competitions; - developing professional training standards; - promoting experts in various professional areas. b) creating learning experiences for children, youth, young people and their teachers by: - ensuring exposure to various professions, locally but also abroad; - offering contexts for discovering and testing their interests and skills; - providing access to information on the skills needed to navigate the future; - developing/training and assessing their skills c) enhancing collaboration between: - business and educational sectors - for career guidance and training for young people and their tutors/trainers - companies in the same business sector to work together for providing effective and efficient programs for young people - other stakeholders (researchers, educational or business NGOs, local and national authorities, etc.) to better capitalize their expertise, resources and interests So far, we succeeded to: - ensure Romania’s participation to the last two biannual WorldSkills International Skills Competitions (in 2017 and 2019) for two, respectively three skills (Web Development, Graphic Design and, in 2019, Mechatronics). We selected 6 young competitors (including a competing team of 2) and the volunteer experts who trained them and providing support for all of them to prepare for the competitions, according to the Competition Standards. - organizing the selection process for Romania participation to the European WorldSkills Competition 2021 for two skills. This also included organizing internships for 3 young people (for the Web Development skills). - coordinating an Erasmus+ VET mobility project for 84 students and 22 teachers from 5 Romanian agricultural high schools to participate in a three-weeks internship program into a modern agricultural high school in Denmark which owns a well-equipped farm, finalized with recognized certification for newly developed competences; - organizing three “try-a-skill” learning experiences in partnership with schools, businesses and NGOs – open to the public; - engaging 5 Romanian experts into an international project on foresight future skills; - co-organizing two conferences for the business top management on the topic of professional and business performance (over 100 participants each); - conducting a workshop for HR managers presenting the benefits of collaboration with educational institutions; - organizing a round table with local authorities and business representatives to discuss about the importance of skills. - attracting 400,000 Eur from the European Commission to develop a VET Excellence Center in Urban Greening in Romania which we will coordinate in partnership with a high-school and a company, in a framework of an international project implemented in 6 countries with 15 partners. - Attracting 39.000 EUR from Erasmus+ KA2 VET project for a training program dedicated to future Romanian experts in skills competitions.