ENGAGE Valencia

School Programme

Process:

The Spanish Educational system is characterised by high rates of failure from the ages of 14 to 16 years (around 30%) and by high school drop-out rates. The high School project aims to decrease the school drop-out rate and to harness the pupils with professional orientation and therefore reduce the risk of social marginalisation. In addition it also aims to support those students with advantaged skills.

The project is composed of three main elements:

1. Developing students’ social and moral skills, for which volunteers were given special training by the Education Department of the Valencian Regional Government
2. Guided company visits, both for groups of students and individual visits for those students who have shown a special interest in a company’s activity;
3. Employability skills – volunteers coach students in job interview technique and CV writing.

Impact:

According to the tutors, the program has:

• Supported teenagers in preparing for daily adult life
• Given young people knowledge of the working world, showing them the diversity of the companies, real professionals, functions and professional orientations
• Shown young people the importance of effort, how to get the best out of opportunities, teamwork, positive attitudes and interpersonal relations, etc.
• Raised awareness of the importance of training: “it is necessary to study and to prepare oneself to get a good job  and to improve in a working environment”
• Presented young people with the opportunity to reflect and encouraged them to think before taking a decision, acting and thinking about life’s possibilities and their professional future

• Motivated the students by experiencing the example set by the company volunteers attitude towards study and training.

Prison programme

Process:

The Prison project looks at supporting open prisoners who are studying on vocational courses and assisting them with the skills needed to apply for and secure a job.

Volunteers work with the prisoners for 2 months, teaching them how to launch their small businesses, from an idea to implementation covering details such as procedures and public grants. Volunteers also run sessions aimed at developing the prisoner’s skills for employability and cover how to handle a job interview and help prisoners to improve their CVs.

The programme also includes indoor football sessions, with prisoners and neighbours so as to stimulate integration.

Environmental programme

Process:

New for 2010, Volunteers have donated their time to Inspecting and preserving the habitats of rivers in collaboration with Fundacion Limnes.

With the assistance of the scientific river monitoring kit, participants learn about the environmental importance of rivers and what we can do to improve their situation.

The volunteers have inspected the following three rivers:

• Río Mijares. Municipio Vilareal
• Río Turia. Municipio Riba-roja
• Río Vinalopó. Municipio Elche

Companies: Adding Technology, AESOV, Bancaja, Barclays, BBVA, Britsh Petroleum Oil España, Cap Gemini, Deloitte, Desata tu Potencial, Ferro Spain, Ferrocarriles of Valencia, Fundar, Grupo BDB, Hospital General de Valencia, Iberdrola, IBM, KPMG, La Florida, Leopoldo Pons, Moddos, Mustang, Pikolinos, San Lucar Fruit, SAV, SECOT, SPB, Telefonica, Tempe (Zara Group), Valencian Port.

Partners: Fundar