VALTIS’ PRESS RELEASE 1, February 2017
From 30th to 31st January 2017 the Kick-Off-Meeting of ERASMUS+ project VALITS – Validating Transversal Skills of young workers in seasonal tourism work – was held in Saalfelden, Austria near Salzburg.
The project is addressing the problem of thousands of seasonal workers who are in the cycle of unemployment in the low season. Though these workers possess informal transversal skills that would give them the potential to find more permanent jobs, the structure of CVs and the lack of attention to transversal skills and competences do not make them visible yet.
The main objective of the project VALITS is to identify informal transversal skills and competences of young seasonal workers in tourism. Therefore, the project partners will develop a “Validation Tool” that provides graded assessment of young workers’ “Informal Transversal Skills” which include key competences such as language skills, interpersonal skills, customer service and organisational skills and that which they have been gained through their informal and non-formal work experience and learning. In a second step a “Career Guidance App” will be created that matches their identified transversal skills to longer term career opportunities that are required by other professional sectors.
The project involves partners from 5 EU countries: project coordinator Sea Teach (Spain), Danmar Computers (Poland), Know & Can (Bulgaria), EURO Association (Italy) and SMC Saalfelden gGmbH (Austria). To go-ahead the first meeting focused on presenting the schedule and tasks of the project. In the centre of attention were the development of the Validation Tool and Career Guidance App which will be launched in November 2018 during the final conference in Palma de Mallorca.
The final discussion was attended by the mayor of Saalfelden, Erich Rohrmoser and by the Chamber of Commerce Austria, Dietmar Hufnagl who gave a valuable insight into the current situation of young workers in seasonal winter tourism in Salzburg. A follow-up discussion gave interesting information about similar problems and contrary lacks in different countries which could offer synergies between different tourism regions across borders. The discussion showed that VALITS can deliver a high contribution for developing a recognition system of transferal skills and competences in the European Union. The next meeting will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria.
More information can be found at www.valits.eu
Contact:
Project Coordinator Sea Teach S.L.
Port Petit 324, 07660 Cala D’or,
Mallorca, Spain
Phone: +34 971 648 429
Fax: + 34 971 648 101
Mail: