SAAM, an EU funded pilot project that promotes VET mobility between Africa and Europe, is starting in August.
Since its beginning in 2020 and despite the obstacles of the pandemic, the project has achieved more than 100 mobilities between the two continents. Experts, trainers and coordinators from Europe have visited African partner countries and likewise the African staff from partner VET centres have travelled to Europe. In addition to this, the SAAM project has also managed to gather the partners together on several occasions. There was an online kick-off meeting with 90 participants, an intermediary meeting held in Nairobi with 50 people, a SAAM seminar in Brussels with 60 participants and in June, the steering committee and the Work Package leaders met in Luanda.
The main purpose of these meetings was to prepare the partners for the current phase of the project: student mobility. The EU staff from the partner VET centres who visited Africa participated in job shadowing and collected information to help identify best practice and to provide recommendations. Next, the African staff from the partner VET centres completed a one-week training course on international mobility programmes in Brussels and took part in job shadowing in the European VET centres to be able to establish an international department in their centres.
THE EU PILOT PROJECT SAAM STARTED THE MOBILITY OF AFRICAN VET STUDENTS TO EUROPE IN AUGUST
Now the European and the African VET centres are working together with the SAAM team to start the students’ mobility. The steering committee and the Work Package leaders meeting in Luanda last June was useful to produce guidelines and recommendations regarding logistics, communication, and intercultural preparation of the students. Before the departure of the students, the African centres will also receive a visit from VET technicians from the EU partner centres to finalise the creation of the training programme and for the preparation of the selected students. The first African students are arriving in Europe in August for a one-month stay and the groups will continue to arrive until December. In 2023, the same process will be repeated and this time the students will spend two months in Europe with a one-month internship in a company.
Thanks to this, the SAAM project is making history by making mobility between Africa and Europe for VET students a reality.
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