SAAM connects 32 partners working together for a powerful alliance in VET education between Africa and Europe. Having a strong partnership, composed of experts in different fields, is a crucial feature for this ambitious pilot project to be successful. VET centers, NGOs, youth organizations and institutions work together and bring their experience in their field. Every single one of them is unique, but all of them are working for the same goal: improving the VET systems in 24 countries. It is thanks to the diversity and the complementary of all the participants that SAAM can keep moving forward for high-quality results and the correct implementation of the activities over the time.

 

Let us present the work package leaders of the SAAM team:

• CENTRO SAN VIATOR SOPUERTA, created in 1952, is a Spanish school with a huge offer in professional training. Centro San Viator Sopuerta works on the personal development of the students with the focus on entrepreneurship, linguistics, orientation and international mobility. They are the applicant of SAAM, which means that they are responsible for management, administration and finances of the project. San Viator has developed a management plan that sets the pathway to be follow for the whole duration of the project. They are constantly in touch with the several project managers assigned by each partner for a better coordination.

 

• Asociación Mundus is a non-profit organization based in Spain whose main activity is designing and coordinating different international mobility projects as internships, volunteering or long-term projects under the umbrella of different European programmes. Mundus believes that international experience is a way of empowering people and building a better society. The expertise of Mundus when it comes to international mobility is undeniable: it is one of the most prolific organisations in the field all around Europe. Asociación Mundus is the coordinator of the project, meaning that it is in charge of the outline of the project design, communications, logistics, time management, meetings and technical day-to-day tasks.

 

• CNOS-FAPS is an Italian organization working in the field of VET whose aim is that every student can access a quality training based on the business needs through the development of specific and transversal professional skills. In SAAM, CNOS-FAPS is the main responsible to develop the African strategy from Europe. Based on the EVBB report and plus their experience, they will be working on a training module with teachers and staff in order to create different content to advice the African VET center managing international mobility with effective learning outcomes. Each member of the staff in SAAM is asked, once back from Africa, to deliver an action plan with the goal of eventually establishing a mobility department.

 

• Don Bosco Tech Africa is an organization that coordinates 102 VET centers across 34 African countries. Thanks to its experience on vocational education and training, it has a deep knowledge of the different local contexts and a holistic strategy to follow. DBTA’s biggest contribution for SAAM at the beginning was finding VET centres in Africa which were fit and interested in SAAM. Eventually, they ended up gathering more than 80% of the VET centers involved in the project, so it has been a crucial point of contact and a cohesive partner. They are playing an important role on coordinating the different African partners and organizing the logistics and plan for the student mobilities in Europe. They will also work with CNOS-FAPS on creating an ambitious international plan in the aim of establishing a mobility department in every African VET center of the project.

 

• EVBB, the European Association Institutes for Vocational Training, which is considered as an umbrella association, as it works with 65 educational institution for a better quality in VET all over Europe. EVBB is an expert in VET education in an European context. As a member of SAAM it has a special mission to carry out an analysis of the African VET systems to be exploited after the first mobility flow of the project: the job-shadowings. To achieve that, the European staff going to African VET centres will observe and take notes once they are on site for the job-shadowing. They will need to provide the teaching methods, the contents given, the technologies used, but even insights about the local labor market. These information will serve to fill out a template which will help EVBB to work on a report about the situation in African VET centers. Thanks to this report it will be possible to build a strategy to give key solutions to fill in the gaps between European and African VET system.

 

• EfVET, the European Forum of Technical and Vocational Education and Training, works to enhance technical and vocational education and training in Europe with an international point of view. One of the main tasks EfVET has in SAAM is to prepare the first step of the African staff mobility in Europe: a training seminar in Brussel. They will conceive a one week workshop whose subject will be expanding his own capacity in order to build international mobility departments and networks. Thanks to it, the participants will gain the status of a certified “mobility coordinator”.

 

• IEK AKMI in Greece is coordinating more than 14,000 students in all the country in different professional schools and branches. Quality is the main word in AKMI school: they are innovating with new tools to ensure the best to their students. Thanks to this experience they are able to work for the implentation of the EQAVET – The European Quality Assurance Reference Framework for VET – in SAAM. Following this European indicator is a way to ensure the quality of the project.

 

• SCF, Scuola Centrale Formazione, is an Association representing training institutions and organizations at a nation level, focused on sharing experiences thanks to a special network, with the aim of facilitating the replication of training experiences. SCF puts sharing in the center of its work, the reason why they are in charge of the establishment of SAAM Network, which will foster the international cooperation in and out of SAAM’s partnership. It will have two aims: first, to be a database keeping and contact point for all the organizations to be in touch; and second, to give career guidance and counselling services in the future.

 

• YESForum is a European network composed of 40 NGOs willing to improve the future of young people thanks to education and transnational cooperation. YESForum, as a SAAM member, will work during the third and last step of the project to create an online training module which will contain all the information for the African students to get themselves prepared for an international learning experience in Europe.