How to close the gap between the low-skilled young people and the industry which is crying out for staff? This was the challange behind the BHC21 project. Guidance centre MEEF (FR), together with several French, Flemish and British partners, worked on it.

Véronique Debuigny, project manager at MEEF (Maison pour l'Entreprise, l'Emploi et la Formation), and deputy director Christophe Chériaux explain more.

Véronique: 'In the first phase of the project, we introduced a large group of young people to the industry sector. In the second phase, we started preparatory training with a smaller group of eight young people. One dropped out before starting the training, a second on the way. So in the end there were six of us.'

'The preparatory training lasted ten weeks. The first two weeks allowed the young people to increase their digital competences, and especially their soft skills: communicating efficiently, working in a team, keeping to rules and agreements, evaluating yourself... All things you need when working in a company, but which this target group in particular sometimes finds difficult. The training was given by two employees of Sud Concept, one of our partner organisations'.

Digital tools

Christophe: 'Then the young people received another two weeks of short training to learn how to handle machines. The next two weeks they practiced on a real turning and milling machine. This was controlled with specialised software. To learn how to work with it, they were given two specially developed digital tools. Via a smart voice assistant, a kind of Siri, they could ask questions orally. And via a video assistant on a tablet they could watch videos showing them exactly what to do. These tools had been worked out by our second partner organisation: Cetim, the Centre technique des industries mécaniques. Three technicians from Cetim also guided the young people, see more details here .'

'The young people completed their preparatory training with a four-week internship in a metalworking company. There they used the digitals tools again. Kevin Tibéri, the trainer of Cetim, had drawn up scenarios for this beforehand. This internship was very instructive for the young people. They could see with their own eyes that these companies also use modern technologies. And also, that working in a factory is not necessary dirty and hard, but exciting and challenging.

Véronique: 'So the preparatory training itself was provided by our partner organisations. MEEF played mainly a mediating role. We often guided the young people with very practical, everyday things, such as how to get to their internship placement - mobility is often a real issue for them. We also took this into account when selecting participating companies: they should not be too far away from where the young people lived.'

'That was perhaps our biggest challenge: convincing companies to join the project. Because of covid, that was quite difficult. Fortunately, we did find some willing. They saw that the project could help them attract staff, and they also genuinely wanted to do something about youth unemployment in the region.'

Mixed results

Christophe: 'Of the six young people who completed the preparatory training, two signed an apprenticeship contract with the company where they had done their traineeship. Of the other four trainees, one is now taking an additional one-month training course to get to know the industrial sector even better. One applied for a job at Airbus. And the last two didn't fancy a factory job after all, and are now receiving guidance again at MEEF.'

'If you look purely at the figures, you might think that the project has not been a great success. Especially when you know that we put a lot of time and energy into it. So the results are mixed, yet we have to look at the bright side. We introduced young people to industrial companies, and we got them excited about jobs in the sector. Without this project, they would never have succeeded. The cooperation with the partners was also very positive. And again: without covid, it would all have been different.'

'The project is still ongoing, but even after this is finshed, we want to continue to raise awareness among young people about jobs in the industry. We are looking forward to new projects in that direction.'