Around 35 teachers and staff members from VET centers in Africa will spend a month in European centers and will participate in an international meeting in Brussels

SAAM (Supporting Alliance for African Mobility), the largest project to date to promote Vocational Training and mobility between Europe and Africa, coordinates for the first time the arrival of teachers and other staff members from African Vocational Training centers in Europe. 35 African professionals will spend a month in a European educational center and will participate for a week in an international seminar in Brussels on mobility programs.

SAAM, presented by Centro San Viator (Bilbao) and coordinated by Asociación Mundus (Zaragoza), is an unprecedented project included in the AU-EU Skills for Youth Employability Program and financed with 4 million euros from the European Commission. SAAM’s objective is to contribute to the improvement and modernization of Vocational Training, improve the relationship between Vocational Training studies and the labor market and create links between Africa and Europe. The partnership of this 4-year pilot project has 36 organizations from 16 African countries and 8 European countries.

To date, and despite the pandemic situation, SAAM has successfully completed the first phase of the project. Since its official launch at the beginning of 2020, 24 trips by Europeans (teachers and mobility experts) have been achieved to 13 of the 16 African partner countries to analyze their Vocational Training system. Now, it is time for the African partners to travel to Europe.

In the first place, the African educational personnel will spend a month in the European partner centers of the project. During that same stay, they will participate in a seminar in Brussels (SAAM Seminar: Capacity Building for Leadership in VET Mobility between Africa and Europe) on mobility programs and international projects organized by EfVET, one of the main professional associations at European level. During this event, which will be held from February 14 to 18, they will attend training workshops, visit European institutions and meet representatives and experts from the field of VET and mobility programmes.

The next step of the project will be the first student mobility. In its four years of duration, SAAM will facilitate the mobility of 300 African students who will carry out a training program in the VT centers of the European partners and later internships in companies.

Here some photos of their arrival: