Vulnerable young people: Job and life skills

Dear donors,

We are thrilled to tell you that our project is expanding. We are just about to begin a new edition working with youth centers of the Province of Buenos Aires. Our own team has also grown and we are happy to see how the youngsters that are in a very fragile socio economic situation can take advantage of our workshops.

This new edition will be focused in three main topics: Employment, Life project, Social capabilities.

We are going to work in some specif geographical areas, such as: Almirante Brown, Lanus, Tigre, San Fernando reaching a population estimated in 1100 young boys and girls, from 16 to 24 years old.

We are happy to share with you part of our agenda for the new workshops:

Activities:

Management of training workshops:

Definition of the base organizations that will be part of the project, in relation to criteria of relevance with respect to the defined objectives.
Establishment of formal agreements with grassroots organizations that group young people in situations of social vulnerability.
Enabling the necessary space to develop the workshops.
Establishment of dates and times for conducting training workshops.
Conformation of the groups of participants.
Monitoring of the number of attendees.
Feedback with each base organization regarding participation criteria.
Conducting training / experimentation workshops
Content planning and design
Group device design: Plenary + discussion groups + Emergencies + Plenary.
Psycho-dramatic and playful techniques.
Definition of tools: audio visual material, apps (eg: poll everywhere) etc. Design of data collection materials
Analysis of the experience and systematization of learning
Qualitative and quantitative report on the implementation of the project, which will include a section on
recommendations for future implementations.

And also and most important some of the subjetcs/contents tthat we will be working on: 

Construction of the field of problems that cross the world of youth and employment.

Self-diagnosis: What questions guide the path of self-reflection?

Identification of resources and powers: Knowledge, Experiences. Reappropriation of skills and competences acquired in non-formal areas.

Technical tools derived from the self-diagnosis exercise: Letter of Presentation, Situational CV, Labor Profiles.
How to think and design a strategy linked to the setting of a vital / occupational / work project ?: Short and long term objectives. Family and social constraints to approach the proposed objectives. Availability and family organization.

Existing networks Arming and / or expansion of networks.

Analysis of the immediate context: What and how should I look in my neighborhood?

Itineraries to improve employability: how to trace them based on their own resources, needs and interests.

(We will put "play" within the framework of the work modules, the resources available to each neighborhood and municipality to accommodate and address youth problems.This "Recursero", will be developed ad hoc for the areas of the GCBA  ( Province of Buenos Aires) where will be working. 

We are expecting to start in the coming weeks, so we will share with you photos and testimonies soon!

Many Thanks!

FOP Team

Dear Donors,

A brand new edition is about to begin! We area thrilled to share with you a bit our planning. We think it is a good way for you to know us better and to take a look to the way we are working:

Workshop 1:

1) Presentation of the equipment and workshops (15 minutes)

2) Presentation of the young people. Individual (name, age, where I live) (15min.)

3) Ejector shaft: Why am I here? Why did I sign up for the Mentoring Program?
Dynamics: "Exquisite Corpse" (30/45 minutes)
a) How did I come here? Each young person must complete the word / phrase that his previous companion says. One of the coordinators can start the sentence, so that they can continue completing it.
b) Why did I come here?
Objective: that the group can build, in a playful and joint way, a group story of how and why they got there. The idea is to be able to inquire about the imaginaries and representations that are put into play, as well as to begin to gather information about the context, interests and needs. Investigate the reasons why young people decide to approach the program and the workshops.

      4) Ejector shaft: What is being young? (30/45)
Note: The coordinators, according to the evaluation of the group climate, will decide the relevance of one or another dynamic.

Dynamics 1: General trigger question. What is being young? Brainstorming on poster.
Taking the emerging axes, the proposal consists of forming discussion / discussion groups where each group must defend with different arguments the position of the group to which it belongs. Each group is grouped according to the adjective with which it is identified. Ex: being young is being "fun", "worker", "lazy"

Dynamics 2: "A day of life". In small groups, they are given an image of a young person (magazine cut). The slogan is that in a group they assemble a story about a day of that person's life. They are assigned 5/10 minutes to put it in common among them and then each group shares what they thought orally.
Objective: to investigate the imaginary of "what it is to be young", through the representations that the proposed dynamic triggers.

5) Recreation (15 min)

6) Ejector shaft: Who am I? (30/45 min)

Dynamics 1: "Molding with play dough".
Each young man is asked to make some free design of something that represents him with the plasticine. At the end, each unit should tell the rest, what it did and why it represents it.

Dynamics 2:
It is proposed as a slogan that each think 3 strenghts / skills / know-how, and 3 weaknesses / concerns / concerns.

Optional dynamic 2: that each one make a list of 3 things that you like about yourself, and 3 things that you do not like.

Objective: that young people, through the different proposed dynamics, can begin to identify representations linked to self-concept.

7) Closure. Review of the work. Agenda, representations, imaginary emerged in the dynamics. Resignifying and giving meaning to the elaborated.

In our next report we will be sharing some photos of the workshops that begin next week!

Thanks for you support

FOP Team

Date of commencement of program execution: April 2017
Expected Program Completion Date: September 2017


The following report sets out the progress of the project in question, covering the months of April - September 2017.
During this period, 14 programs were developed in public secondary schools in the City of Buenos Aires. The programs consisted of two meetings of 3 hours each. About 280 young people participated in the project.
The Workshops are Reflection coordinated by professionals who will address issues related to the world of work, such as readiness to work as a team, adoption of proactive attitudes, responsibility to the task, planning, division of labor, setting schedules.
We also worked deeplyon family imaginary, personal, institutional, etc.
Design of unique strategies:
Programs developed in order to reach the active participation of young people in the various activities proposed, aimed at young people being able to build a work project, where their own desires and interests have a privileged place.
Work on self-diagnosis: self-perception, recognition of skills, abilities, attitudes and skills. Detection of areas that require further consolidation or development.
Our interest lies in the concrete possibility of expanding the opportunities for development and growth of young people in situations of social vulnerability and the promotion of equal opportunities in the construction of educational and work projects.
The FOP conducts supervisory meetings to which our team assists and that gives us the possibility to work on the emergents of the group process, as well as share and socialize methodologies and tools.
The programs we develop at the Foundation aim to reach the active participation of young people in the various activities proposed so that they themselves are able to build a work project.
We work on self-diagnosis: self-perception, recognition of skills, abilities, attitudes and skills. Detection of areas that require further consolidation or development.
The dynamics and contents of the workshops are intended to elucidate the juvenile subjectivities and to intervene over them with respect to work as a mode of social bond, as a way of expanding the living space.

We are pleased to share with you the progress we have made since the beginning of the school year in Argentina.

We contacted the authorities of different public schools in Buenos Aires and we have already agreed with 4 institutions to give our workshops to the students of the last two years of high school.

This year we have implemented a modification regarding the duration of each workshop: each will be 6 hours, and will be divided into two workshops of 3 hours each.

This change was decided in our supervision meetings and the content was modified, taking into account that there are elements that are different according to the type of job interview, how to prepare for it, the type of interviews that are carried out, which can be Formal or informal, face-to-face or Skype-type applications; Depending on who performs the searches: it is not the same as a multinational company, a small business or a neighborhood business.

Therefore, the workshops we carry out with young people will be more focused and specific and the time will be used more efficiently.

In this way, we also expand the number of programs to 14 and therefore, we will reach more than 350 young students.

We have already started with the dictation of 4 workshops in a public school located in Fragata Sarmiento 1817 street of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

Our work is based on the implementation of a device that has as main objective the development of tools and subjective techniques necessary for the development of a work project.

These areas focus on rescuing the potentials that allow young people to be recognized as capable of entering a demanding and competitive labor market.

These meetings encourage young people to think about their own potentialities, which are the main resource to begin planning for a better and better future.

Thanks to your help we can continue making improvements to our project!

In Argentina, the school calendar is from March to December. During our summer, January and February, we have been focusing in the learnings from our last year experience with students and teachers.

This year, we will work with 200 youngters but focusing our intervention in  just one or two public schools, instead of working with several diferent school of Buenos Aires city.

We learned that working with one or two schools that belong to the same neighborhood, allows us to  better understand the needs and expectations of students and teachers,  and to deepen the scope of our intervention. Re- desingning our approach and re-thinking the different themes and strategies, have been a priority for us during the recess months.

We decided to work with the students from the last two years, 16 and 17 years old students. This is a real challenge as we need to prepare different  contents that must be appropiate for each age group. A challenge and a opportunity that will allow us to keep in touch with the students that are now 16 years old, and have the chance,next year, to provide them with more precise and specific tools regarding the work world. 

We have been carrying out this programme since we have started our activities as an NGO, this is 16 years ago. But for us is very important to keep on learning from the experience. Being young is being in constant change, so if we want to work with youngsters we need to be in constant evaluation of our approaches an methodologies.

This year we will be working side by side with directors and teachers, building cooperative relationships that will help us achieve the goals we have defined for this year.

Thank´s to your help we can continue making improvements to our project!

• Role Playing (PDF)