I support the approach of the development of skills as a key factor in the fight against youth unemployment. However, I believe that that alone is not enough. What are the driving forces that move our young people to acquire these skills? There are all types: personal development, future security, the desire for power or influence, money, family welfare, to help others, etc. There are excellent reasons, good reasons – and let’s be optimistic – not so good reasons. The existence of one or other type determines a person’s development.<\/p>\n
Sometimes these driving forces are dreams (youth is the time to dream big); sometimes, they are based on reason, or ideals or natural<\/em> impulses… There are long, medium and short term driving forces. There are forces that never cease; others have to be relaunched every day. Sometimes the driving force is faulty: an exaggerated desire to excel or to accumulate power and money.<\/p>\n But forgetting the existence of these forces during the education of our young people leads to training without a basis. In addition, it is more difficult to defend a skill-based discourse when there is no driving force behind it. Furthermore, if these forces are deficient, we shall end up filling the labour market with skilled professionals… but without ideals.<\/p>\n The opposite situation generates almost the same level of rejection: unskilled idealists. However, it is a lesser risk; since ideals are an enormous driving force.<\/p>\n Perhaps we should place more emphasis on investigating these driving forces, as they are the basis for building skills. They are also the basis for promoting a healthier organizational culture in companies that will lead to equal opportunities, occupational conciliation… Recently, the Everis Foundation published a study on the employability of university students. The study shows how companies value the honesty and ethical commitment, the capacity to learn and work as a team of young professionals rather than other skills, such as their technical expertise or being results-oriented. We can already appreciate the effort being made by many educational institutions to incorporate measures that help to awaken dreams and ideals in their students.<\/p>\n I conclude with the words a student wrote to us this week and that show the potential of volunteering in the training of our young people: Let me tell you… When I arrived there, I realized that I was finding it very difficult to adapt to “My World”. At the beginning I found it quite normal, but with the passage of time, I realized that I experienced the maximum degree of happiness there, and that I had fallen in love with the people, children, their way of life, their way of dealing with day to day life with a big smile… It found it difficult to accept, but this experience has changed me: it was a watershed in my life… I am not the same. I do not have the same priorities.<\/em><\/p>\n Published in ABC by Rafael Herraiz,\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>General Manager\u00a0of Cooperaci\u00f3n Internacional. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few days ago I was lucky enough to attend the Bilbao Youth Employment Forum, organized by the Novia Salcedo Foundation and which deals with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-repor"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"idealistasABC\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.youthemploymentdecade.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/idealistasABC.jpg?resize=175%2C300\")
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