FORTES and upcoming challenges

FORTES Impresa Sociale returns with renewed enthusiasm after the summer break to continue all the new challenges that have come up and found their way into our company's busy annual schedule. 

The Incoming Department is already busy planning new incoming mobilities: at the end of September, 2 Swedish groups will arrive for a 1-week programme of visits and educational and training activities in the field of Social Inclusion. Then FORTES will host until the end of the year about 100 students, organising short-term (1-2 weeks) training programmes and 1-2 month internships in the fields of Catering and Social and Health Services. In addition to these projects, there are job-shadowing: programmes for teachers aimed at professional, cultural and human enrichment. Teachers, all Swedish nationals, will visit high schools in the province of Vicenza to compare and observe teaching methods and learn good practices from their Italian colleagues.

The collaboration with the Swedish organisation Academedia, in Stockholm, began in 2021, with pilot job shadowing projects. Having received very positive feedback from visiting professors in Vicenza, FORTES is getting an increasing number of requests for new Erasmus projects for 2023, concerning both student and staff mobility. Thanks to this new partnership and established ones with Spanish, French and Portuguese schools FORTES has seen in the last year a steady flow of participants coming to Vicenza and expects to welcome 500 participants next year.

As for outgoing, the curiosity, commitment and proposals of new schools, interested in participating in the Erasmus world, are being welcomed in anticipation of the upcoming projects, in particular for the deadlines on School Sector Accreditation (19th October), and on individual mobility in 2023. In addition, interesting collaboration opportunities are coming up, in order to improve synergies with the institutes, thanks to the PNRR funds. In particular, the FUTURA framework will enable us to cooperate on reducing territorial gaps and fighting against early school leaving. With the mobility of young people in 2021 and 2022, in fact, we were able to experience first-hand the effects that Covid and long lockdowns have had on the psyche and self-confidence of young people: fragility, insecurities and disorientation have definitely increased, and this has made us want to understand how we can make our contribution to the social, cultural and economic integration of young people by coping with this new course of events. In the area of disability and special needs, there are two new, stimulating challenges: the collaboration with Cooperativa Margherita in Sandrigo, and the participation in the second edition of KA2 "Make it Happen", focused on the exchange of good practices and the construction of networks that encourage European mobility in an inclusive manner. Finally, as far as higher technical institutes are concerned, participation in the Mechatronics, Logistics, and Tourism Foundations is about to be joined by participation in the ITS Academy Agrifood Veneto.