At Centro San Viator Sopuerta (Vizcaya) and Asociación Mundus, we have always had an approach to international mobility not as a complement to regulated education, but as a valuable method for the personal and professional development of students and staff.
International mobility and multiculturalism are elements that are the threads that link together from the beginning to the end the theoretical and practical learning that we already provide. And we must not forget that today’s students do not conceive or remember a world that is not global (and globalized) and that, in an international business and labor context, lifelong training must go in that direction.
The Supporting Alliance for African Mobility (SAAM) project is based on years of experience in international mobility and aims to be a bridge between two continents based on collaborative learning in the field of VET. It is an ambitious three-phase pilot action that fosters the exchange of knowledge and good practices between 24 countries in Europe and Africa.
It depends directly on the Skills for Youth Employment program of the partnership of the European Union and the African Union and will help to experiment a formula that lays the foundation for a future intercontinental mobility program. It involves numerous institutional and civil society actors, and impacts both the student body and the VET centers involved and their staff.
The partnership of SAAM does know that a project of such magnitude directly contributes to the mission of placing international mobility as an enhancer of personal and professional development of present and future generations. Traveling enriches us, energizes our curiosity, agitates our fears and helps us to manage situations outside our comfort zone. Isn’t this learning as valuable as the content of a subject itself? Wouldn’t young people be better able to face the challenges that life will put in their way after living such an experience?
Although this approach may already be assumed in the current educational approach, such ventures like SAAM help us to confirm that the direction and the pace are adequate. But also, in this case, we are going one step further by exploring previously unknown pathways in European mobility programmes. The incursion into the African continent from a bidirectional and collaborative approach will directly bring a wealth to our associates, and indirectly to the educational community on both continents.
With experiences like SAAM, we generate a positive impact on different groups in terms of transversal skills, which as we know, are key and an objective to achieve. Moreover, we work on the essential pillar of multiculturalism, which in this case is much more explicit than in the intra-European version.
Understanding, respecting and embracing other cultures and ways of life make us a better society, and makes SAAM a useful and necessary project in an historical moment with overwhelming xenophobic messages and exclusion. That is why the motto of the project, Moving Together, summarizes this need to collaborate to move forward.
SAAM is an unprecedented challenge, but also an opportunity to make a small contribution to the improvement of the skills of future generations and facilitating their employability. This all comes under the premise that together we are better and more capable. This award is the recognition of all the people and entities involved, thanks to which we have raffled a 2020 that has turned our plans upside down.
With a strong and committed partnership and a tenacious, creative and resilient team, we advance in this adventure that excites us more and more every day. Thanks to MAGISTERIO for recognizing this involvement and allowing us to spread the message at the informative referent of the educational community. We are happy to share the stage with initiatives as necessary and relevant as those that are awarded. We promise to live up to it!
Marta Albújar – SAAM Communications Manager
* This article was originally published in Spanish at the newspaper Magisterio, with the occasion of the ‘Protagonists of Education’ 2020 Awards, and it can be retrieved on this link.
