The SAAM project takes the next step: First mobilities of VET students between Africa and Europe achieved!

The first two mobilities of VET students between Africa and Europe of the SAAM project have already taken place… And many more are about to happen!

After the visits of the European VET professionals and teachers to the African centres to learn about their facilities and their curricula and the following mobilities of the Africans to the centres of their European colleagues to perform a one-month job shadowing, it is the turn of the students. The student mobility aims to offer an educational, social and cultural experience for the participants, help them improve their CV and employability and allow the SAAM team to analyse and conclude the best practices for this type of mobility programs.

In August, a group of Tunisian students boarded a plane bound for Europe. They were students of Agriculture from the WeYouth centres who were about to participate in the first ever SAAM student mobility and complete a month of training at one of the KPEDU centres in Finland: the school in Kannus. At the moment, a second group of students, this time from EHTCV (Cabo Verde) and from the specialty of hospitality and tourism, is doing a stay at the Anespo centre in Azores (Portugal).

In addition to following the educational program according to their specialty, both the Tunisian and the Cabo Verdean students have had time to learn about and enjoy the culture of their destination country. During the mobility of the Tunisians, for instance, the KPEDU centre held the harvest festival, an ancient Finnish tradition related to agriculture. They participated in the event and took the opportunity to also share their culture by wearing typical costumes and preparing traditional Tunisian food. Those from Cabo Verde, despite having arrived recently, have already been able to enjoy some iconic places of the Azores Island.

And meanwhile, the rest of SAAM mobilities continue. Only since September, several groups of EU peers and experts have visited Malawi, Ivory Coast, Benin, Cameroon and Liberia and a group of African peers travelled to Italy. All these experiences are added to the total number of mobilities of the project reaching 130.

To present these achievements, the SAAM team organised a transnational online meeting with the entire partnership. In this meeting, held on October 5, the next key moments in the project calendar were explained. All the partners are excited about everything that is about to happen and that enthusiasm is also shown in the new collaborations that are already being formed between the partners as a result of their good work together in SAAM. These new collaborations and all those to come show that SAAM has made mobility for VET between Africa and Europe a reality that will continue to exist in the future.