ESF Ambassadors 2015

The ESF-ambassadors of 2015 are:

• "Learning works!" of Consortium L4-Adult Education Leuven
• "ISO-A" of Antwerp University in cooperation with ABVV, ACV and ACLVB
• "Café Herman. A good great place in town/Café Herman. A pleasant city full of diversity" of ViaVia Tourism Academy in cooperation with the Economy service of the city of Mechelen

Learning Works! (Innovation project)

of Consortium L4-Adult Education Leuven
Unskilled people constitute an extremely vulnerable group in our labour force. Almost one out of two job-seekers does not have a secondary school degree and therefore faces a higher risk for (long-term) unemployment than semi- or highly skilled job-seekers. Thanks to the ‘Learning Works!’ project, job-seekers learn a so-called bottleneck profession in the course of one year and obtain their secondary school degree.  To turn these unique and innovative learning pathways into a success, L4-Adult Education, VDAB, the centers for Adult Education and the Center for Basic Education in the Leuven region have joined forces.

Learning Works! has in the meantime as a pilot project brought about a structural change in the offer of EducationQualifying TrainingPathways (OKOT) in Flanders.

Contact details: Eline Vanleeuw

More information on the  ESF project can be found  here.

ISO-AO (Innovative Social Dialogue about Labour Organisation) (Innovation project)

of  Antwerp University in cooperation with  the trade unions ABVV, ACV and ACVLB
The social dialogue regarding new types of labour organisation is not always running smoothly. Trade unions ask for more expertise as well as more room for manoeuvre to set up actions regarding this theme. They need a support tool to set up trade union services. By means of this tool, the service providers get a better understanding of new types of labour organisation. This way, they can provide more accurate support for employee representatives to confront such problems in their company. So  social dialogue about labour organisation will proceed more efficiently in the future. This way, an innovative social dialogue for qualitative labour organisation has been introduced.

Contact details: Dominique Kiekens

More information on the ESF project can be found here.

Café Herman. A Great Good Place in Town’/‘Café Herman. A pleasant city full of diversity’ (transnational project)

of ViaVia Tourism Academy in cooperation with the City of Mechelen
For quite some ethnic entrepreneurs it is not self-evident to feel at ease in an urban economic context. This project helps these entrepreneurs to find the right services to support their business or local shop in order to reach more stability and a better integration into the urban economic structure and to grow in a sustainable way. Traditionally, they have received advice from urban service providers and SME advisors, who gave advice from the side line and acted as outsiders. Café Herman tailors this service and invests in shaping relationships. Mechelen is the pilot city for this ESF project. By means of shop visits,  a representative of the economic service creates a trust liaison with 100 ethnic local shop keepers. In the meantime, it has turned out that two thirds of the shop keepers concerned is ready to cooperate. And this is rewarding: lasting issues are settled, permits get arranged, shop keepers participate in rummage sales, share their origin story with students of the Thomas More high school etc. But what really matters, is the fact that multi-cultural shop keepers and their family get a feeling of belonging in their new home city. Café Herman provides recognition to these shop keepers, detects problems and counters stereotypes.

Café Herman has also a transnational dimension with partners in Poland and the south of Italy, where the labour force is leaving. The paradox between the influx of unskilled migrants in Flanders, and the exodus in deprived European regions, stimulates out-of-the-box thinking.

Contact details: Dorien De Troy