The main concept of our initiative consists of the creation of a career forum for youths in High School in Haskovo District. During the forum, there will be meetings, tutoring, workshops, and the creation of an internship platform to help the younger generation make choices for their future professional careers. The main part of our idea aims to develop soft skills acquainting the youths with future innovative career options.

city of Haskovo

Lack of jobs and business opportunities are the economic factors that led to progressive area depopulation. More and more young people decide to live elsewhere, convinced that they will find better professional opportunities. The lack of information about opportunities at a local level, of social commitment and cohesion strengthens their belief that elsewhere they will have better chances. The progressive number of young people reduction in the region leads to a further economic crisis increase, which is the primary reason why youth is "looking for their luck" away. We see a vicious cycle in which these 2 problems are intertwined. Our project will reach the maximum number of young people and help them find themselves, their professional path, and contribute to solving this problem.

The main concept is to create a career forum for youth in high schools in Haskovo District. We believe that young people are the most important driving force and that high school students in the region have the right to develop as and wherever they wish. Without them the country's economy could not exist and develop properly. Our project will give the target group the opportunity to meet different industries and successful people from whom to gain experience and expertise. The years in high school is the time when young people can discover their interests and abilities and when they need guidance for their future development. Our idea aims at developing soft skills, as well as acquainting the youth with future innovative career options with leading regional, national, and global companies.

The goal of the project is to cultivate an environment in which students/participants and freshly graduated have the opportunity to get acquainted with all the details and specification of different professions, to make smart choices for their own future career development based on their individual skills, abilities, preferences, knowledge, and to do so without being afraid of change and to freely stand for their choices. The project aims at stimulating the participants in making a change, if needed, and to stand for their choices and solutions. Our concept is targeting every participant’s personal choice with having in mind their individual skills, knowledge, and talents. The methods and approaches we aim to apply are connected to non-formal and informal education by creating opportunities for youth to develop their creative potential, own business ideas. We plan to organise events (workshops, “Dragons’ Day”, focus groups, etc.) to establish strong connection between local businesses, community, and high school students. The meetings with different professions and industries will help them make a choice for the future. The Forum – CAREER GUIDE will give the participants in the project the opportunity to develop their abilities, confidently choose their career path, and freely follow their dreams. We plan to apply transparent project and financial management, democratic rules.

Tangible results: developed online platform (registration opportunity, plan for career orientation; Get Together section (arranged min. 20 meetings with experts and professionals from different areas); created Business Forum with min. 20 presentations of national and international companies and the requirements needed to meet their open positions; developed mentorship program. Intangible results achieved during project implementation and afterward: created connection between the companies and the participants, enhanced attitude towards laboring and empowered NEETs and youth, more socialised vulnerable groups, increased collaboration between local authorities, schools, businesses, and social institutions, enhanced softs skills of youth, a system for career guidance

The project will increase the information flow to reach high school students from general, profiled educational and VET sectors. In addition, we will reach an indirect target group of youth NEETs in the region through the platform and public events. This way the project will foster the local societal dialogue between the key actors and involve youth in the decision-making process. Civic educational formal and non-formal methods will be applied by our mentors and experts in the mentoring programme. We are convinced that this way we will achieve sustainable intangible results by creating opportunities for youth to acquire and enhance their soft skills. Internal evaluation methods applied by the project team will help them to follow and properly weigh the project progress.

The founding members of the association are behind the idea. We created internal ad-hock committees in different key areas for our association in order to develop a sustainable strategy for the next three years. Our project team consists of successful Alumni of the Haskovo Language school who are Bulgarians but have their careers in prestigious Bulgarian and foreign businesses, HEIs and governmental institutions have great expertise in development, implementation, and management of European projects, funded by the European Commission and by the National Operative programmes. We have a valuable Erasmus+ expert in our team with more than 10 years of experience and realized ca. 20 international projects in the field of science, research, education and social inclusion.

Office expenses: 2000 EUR
Publicity and public relations incl. advertising and information: 5000 EUR
Personnel (IT developers, hosting, domain, software development, etc.): 20 000 EUR
Project management and implementation costs excluding publicity: 4200 EUR
Testing and piloting phase for the platform: 2500 EUR
Organising pilot events, workshops (online and on-site): 2500
Travel and accommodation costs for the experts, project management team, etc.: 3800

Feedback is very important for us because it will give us more information about our project idea strengths and areas for further improvement. We are open to new collaborations and always accept valuable advice.