Youth, the target is work

It’s not easy to be young and unemployed in Spain today. Unemployment continues increasing: the percentage of jobless youths represent over 57% of the population, the highest percentage in EU countries, according to Eurostat figures released at the end of January. Between October and November 2013 the overall number of unemployed youth increased by 10 thousand people, from 973 thousand to 983 thousand. Various bodies – Caritas, Spanish Red Cross and Roma Foundation Secretariat got together to tackle this situation, all of which have at heart the future of the young generations. They thus decided to set up a “communication and awareness campaign focused on the initiatives for job placement of young people”. For this purpose, all three organizations launched a public competition to select a proposal on this theme, ongoing until March 4. Once the winning idea is selected, the campaign will be launched and developed throughout 2014, and will be available to all territorial offices and delegations of promoting bodies. Twofold goal. The purpose of the communication and awareness campaign, set to reach a twofold goal, according to the involved organizations, is “to highlight the ability of young people in addressing hostile situations, within a general context of difficulty experienced by society as a whole, while attracting the attention of businesses so they may take action for the job placement of young people experiencing social disadvantages”. Participants have been asked, though the campaign, to transmit a set of fundamental ideas: “Young people as protagonists of their own story and of their future; the need for education and acquisition of professional skills, also without a short-term job perspective; enterprises’ commitment to provide young people with the possibility of making experience, and develop their own capabilities”. These messages are in harmony with the major areas in which Caritas, Spanish Red Cross and Roma Foundation Secretariat are committed for the job placement of young people under-30 (training, skills, access to work on behalf of others and promotion of entrepreneurship and self-employment). Not only: they aim at reawakening the yearning to take action among young people. In fact, high unemployment rates, Caritas, Red Cross and Roma Foundation Secretariat pointed out, are also linked to other factors such as: young people’s poor knowledge of the job market and of the mechanisms entailed in job identification, skills that fail to meet job market demands, poor professional qualifications. Looking at the future. The tone of the campaign, said the promoters, should be “positive, so as to transmit the idea of opportunity, activity, possibility, capacity… without falling into unjustified optimism nor in a want of realism when facing the situation experienced by young people”. The winner will be the campaign that best highlights the central role of young people in the building of their own future, although it will be necessary to show that the solution to the problems doesn’t only depend on them. It will also have to underline the role of enterprises and businesses in job placement opportunities, leading to the development of a society with more opportunities for all. The commitment of three bodies. In the framework of social interventions, Caritas, Spanish Red Cross and Roma Foundation Secretariat developed a wide range of initiatives, with the purpose of improving the chances of young people, notably the most vulnerable brackets, along with access to the job market. With this goal in mind they launched various programs to improve the job placement of youths in the framework of the 2007-2013 Multiregional operational program to combat discrimination, co-financed by the European Social Fund. This program covers a wide range of activities. Caritas, the Red Cross and the Spanish Roma Secretariat Foundation have decided to follow the European strategy, but have considered it necessary to adapt the campaign “Join the challenge of work” – sponsored by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security – to the reality of their job placement initiatives of young people, as well as to the characteristics of participants in the same initiatives: young people facing social difficulties. Thus was born the idea of a public competition.