Connecting for the Future Team Hearts

1. Connecting for the FutureTeam Hearts Our project, Connecting for the future, aims at providing a brief insight into Romania’s high rate of youth unemployment, its causes, effects and short, mid and long-term doable solutions. Our focus was on improving the communication between the parties involved in the educational process: the ministry of education, professors, students and future employers. Having identified the roots of the problem, we built our solution taking into account both those already in unemployment and the future generations. Therefore, the core of the project is preventing future unemployment by gradually reducing today’s rates, through improving the curricula, promoting collaboration between educational institutions and companies, reducing the emigration rate and raising the quality of our specialists.

2. Steps • 4-stage process (for short and medium term solutions): • Stage 1: Conducting initial questionnaires and selecting the organizing committee • Stage 2: Training the team and planning the events • Stage 3: Organizing the conferences and workshops at university level • Stage 4: Expand the project to the high school level • Creation of an online platform where we will add all the contact details of the people involved in the short and medium stages, where they can share experiences, brainstorm, post opportunities or search for them. -

3. Specific objectives As the identified causes of the Romanian youth unemployment problem were deep, our vision had to be a more complex one such that the immediate outcomes of the encompassed solutions will be seen only after at least 5 years. After the 4-stage process we plan to achieve the following: • Career center connected to the market reality equipped with career and personality tests, advisors, guest speakers from our target groups (students will go to high school level and employees to the university level) at high school level and in each university • Partnerships between companies and universities which will include: shadowing activities, internships, job and company presentations, guest lectures and companies can target top students and offer them jobs • Partnerships between high schools and faculties which will include: presentations about the educational offer, contests organized by faculty for high school pupils, high schools will actively promote fields that have a deficit of specialists such as IT, engineering, sales and hotel industry

4. Quantitative outcomes: • 20% companies will offer on the spot trainings (in fields such as: plumbing, constructions, transportation, food industry, sales) • 15% companies will be willing to offer scholarships for students to study abroad and then return to work for the company • encouraging faculties to reintroduce the admission exam and adopt higher examination standards (only two possibilities to take an exam) as they are autonomous • encourage professors to include practical activities such as case studies, real life examples in the lectures Long-term outcomes achieved through our platform would be debating the reinforcing of vocational schools and changing the high school curricula.

5. Human resource • PARTNERS and SPONSORS: local and national media (newspapers, TV News, radio, internet), universities and high schools, local entrepreneurs, local job center • ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: students and professors gathered from each university, members from the Student Government, trainers from important partner companies, members from the various youth NGOs + high school teachers, counselors and pupils, members from the Pupil Councils and Alumni Group • PARTICIPANTS: employers, professors, students + high school teachers, counselors and members from the Pupil Councils • BENEFICIARIES: The targeted beneficiaries are the Romanian youth facing unemployment; additional beneficiaries: the community members, labor market and overall economy