A day in the PT

By invitation from Foundation PT, nine mentees from Quinta dos Inglesinhos (Lisbon APPACDM) visited PT on June 17, in a professional mentoring initiative titled ‘A day in the PT’.

One of the aims of APPACDM is to promote the integration into society of citizens with mental disabilities, in accordance with the following headline principles: Standardisation, Customisation, Individualisation and Wellbeing. APPACDM and PT are associated through the NetMentor project, in which they are both partners, together with representatives from Wales, Greece and Italy. NetMentor has developed an e-mentoring programme to support people from socially vulnerable groups to help them integrate into the labour market through vocational training. NetMentor also aims to allow people who have difficulties with their vocational training courses, or who are unemployed, to maintain contact with their institutions through e-mentoring, in order to help them further develop their skills and to be properly motivated to actively search for work.

The APPACDM mentees’ visit to PT was fully in line with the objectives of NetMentor. The visit provided the young mentees with a varied programme, which started with a training session dedicated to computers (web navigation etc) and then continued with a tour of the PT Monitoring and Management Network Centre, including a lively session at SAPO (PT’s internet provider).

The visit was highly interactive, and the interest shown by the mentees was clear from the many questions they asked in the various places they visited and from their responses on the evaluation questionnaire they completed at the end of the session. Each mentee received a certificate of attendance, which counts as an added achievement in their curriculum and helps with their integration into the labour market. See the photographs that accompany this story.

Luís Apolinário
Fundação PT

Make Music, Raise Money, End Poverty!

In March 2009 the young people of the ‘Eastside Sounds' Music Programme arranged a live music event as part of the nation-wide ‘OXJAM' campaign. They raised over a hundred pounds by charging friends and family to enter ‘the gig'.

Every year the OXJAM campaign is organised by the charity Oxfam. The aim is to 'Make Music. Raise Money. End Poverty'. The proceeds go towards development work in Africa.

In preparation for the event the group worked with local artist Julian Lewis to create this two metre high map of Africa. The painting is now exhibited at the Stadwen Youth Centre, where the young people meet to jam every Tuesday evening.

 

Online mentoring and mobility

Mobility is a fast growing dimension of educational and vocational training. More and more organisations now look at this phenomenon with increasing levels of interest and enthusiasm.

Although the benefits of implementing mobility schemes have long become evident, the key question still remains: how to best plan, accomplish and evaluate a mobility initiative? What should educational staff do before, during and after any mobility initiative?

Mobility is a key activity for CSCS, a training provider accredited by the Regional Government of Tuscany and one of the partners in the Leonardo Da Vinci NetMentor project. Participating in NetMentor has inspired CSCS to develop an online dimension to its mentoring scheme to support international students enrolled into a mobility initiative, either as a study-abroad programme or as a work placement.

CSCS has developed an online platform to enable all the different players involved in a mobility initiative to cooperate, share information, provide support, check and evaluate progress.

Thanks to the NetMentor project, integrating a mentoring scheme through this platform within any transnational mobility initiative has become one of the key messages CSCS is committed to spreading among VET organisations who are working to adopt transnational mobility into their training practices.

Click here for the full article by Stefano Tirati of CSCS (PDF document opens in a new window).

 

Next Transnational Meeting

Next NetMentor project meeting in Pistoia, Italy 8th–9th June, 2009

 

‘Turning good practice into standard practice' – EOEF Conference, Lisbon March 2009

On 18th March 2009, Don Hawkins (Gorseinon College) and Janice Hall (Swansea YOS) met with mentors and mentees from APPACDM Lisbon to outline the mentoring experience at the college and the YOS. This discussion was well received by mentees, mentors and tutors.

On 19th and 20th March 2009, Janice Hall (Swansea YOS) and Paula Lebre (Faculdade de Motricidade Humana) presented NetMentor and PIP at a workshop “Peer support and transition work” in Lisbon Conference. Don Hawkins and Marina Ferreira also staffed the Exhibition stand. Lots of interest was generated and positive contacts made. More than 80 participants attended from several European countries.