LINKS: Development of the Digital Sovereignty Competences of Youth Workers

LINKS is a project that focuses on digital sovereignty for youth workers. Digital sovereignty is a concept that seeks to provide individuals with the ability to own their personal data and control its use. The aim of the project is to enable organisations working with young people and managing personal or sensitive data to:

1. Improve and strengthen their knowledge of data protection and help them to monitor and evaluate the use of the data they manage.
2. Support the goal of digital sovereignty in the EU and to offer NGOs and other groups managing personal/sensitive data a way to limit the risks of abuse or cyber-attacks by protecting their data.

The birth of this project stems from several major concerns:

• The majority of data managed by youth workers is of a personal and/or sensitive nature, as they often work with sensitive groups such as migrants, people with disabilities, minors etc. and thus possess personal and sensitive data (e.g. medical data).

• There is a risk of discrimination due to the processing of such data, which can lead to the undermining of the foundations of democracy (Advisory Group on Ethics, 2018).

• The increase of cyber threats is a major concern for institutions, organisations, NGOs etc. that manage sensitive data.

Based on these observations, it follows that it is essential to protect organisations that have to store and manage personal and/or sensitive data. Furthermore, although the EU GDPR has been implemented in the majority of organisations, it appears that many organisations are still having difficulties to protect their data and are not well aware about digital data protection.

Therefore, the LINKS project will directly and actively support youth workers in developing and improving their digital safety skills and competences through the following actions

1. The development of an online platform that will include innovative training on digital sovereignty and data protection. The aim is also to increase awareness about the importance of data protection.
2. The development of a digital game that will enable youth workers (and other organisations) to learn how to protect their own (workers’) data and that of the young people they work with.

ePortfolio Migrants: Supporting migrants in acquiring soft skills to develop employability and entrepreneurship

The ePortfolio Migrants learning tool is an online platform that aims to enhance the social inclusion of newly arrived and long-term resident migrants by supporting them in the development of new soft skills. The overall aim of this project is to foster their social inclusion and to enable them to become more integrated in the labour market.

These objectives have been identified as necessary since observations at the European Union level shows that:

• More than 40% of migrants have jobs that are below their qualification level.

• Migrants have a lower employment rate than nationals

• Migrants have less access to adult education.

That is why, ePortfolio Migrants aims to create a comprehensive application that provides an interactive and flexible soft skills programme for migrants, as well as self-assessment tools to identify areas for improvement and monitor progress. They will have access to a set of interactive and adaptable training modules on soft skills and will be able to define a curriculum depending on the profession and soft skills they wish to target. In particular, the platform will allow them to better understand what soft skills are, but also how their knowledge and experience are linked to soft skills and how they can be enhanced and used in a professional environment (job interviews, setting up and running their own business, developing business networks, etc.).

Thus, this project has several specific objectives (non-exhaustive list):

1. To provide adult learning opportunities for migrants.
2. To increase the soft skills of migrants and thus contribute to labour market integration and entrepreneurship development.
3. Increase the autonomy and self-sufficiency of migrants to navigate life in the labour market environment.
4. Enhance social, economic, and cultural inclusion.
5. Support local authorities, NGOs, job centres and employment agencies in developing and assessing immigrants’ soft skills: support local authorities, NGOs, job centres and employment agencies in matching labour demand and supply.
6. Provide trainers and mentors with the opportunity to transfer and adapt the skills and teaching techniques learned to other contexts and other vulnerable citizens, thus further increasing the opportunities and quality of adult learning in the community.

The partnership of this project is composed of: the EUROPEAN PROFESSIONALS NETWORK (Belgium), The Square Dot team (Belgium), STIMMULI FOR SOCIAL CHANGE (Greece), GIP FORMATION ET INSERTION PROFESSIONNELLE DE L’ ACADEMIE DE NICE (France), Gestión Estratégica e Innovación SL (Spain), Learning for Integration ry (Finland), Einurð (Iceland), Exeo Lab Srl (Italy).