News from Maribor: Our GFIs are becoming a strong partner in city's everyday life!

The first GFI ‘Connecting Youngsters and the Municipality’ set in 2012, where empty municipality-owned office spaces would be rented to young people for a symbolic rent, will be realized in August 2014, but with a broader perspective. Upon request from youngsters and non-governmental organizations in Maribor, the Municipality of Maribor has created a co-working place in the city center. From August 2014 onwards a 2,000 m2 former pharmaceutical factory house will be available to all potential entrepreneurships. The co-working place ‘Tkalski prehod 4’ should encourage and facilitate different work processes, support networking and cooperation between each other and foster the development of one’s own work.

GFI Promotion of Internships tries to encourage companies to provide more internship places for young people and thus increase the skills and employability of young people and facilitate their transition from education and training to a favorable first job. Internships can also be useful for businesses as they can find a potentially excellent future employee with fresh ideas who can contribute significantly to the continued productivity and competitiveness of their company. On May 28, 2014, the event ‘Internship – Take it Serious’ was organized in in the premises of the City Youth Council Maribor. The idea of the workshop was to present the meaning of internship through the eyes of an employer and a youngster. Within the cooperation between two ULSG members, the City Youth Council Maribor and the Career Center of the University of Maribor, more events will be organized in the upcoming months.

The M-Generation GFI has been designed as a space for direct, more efficient and easier way to find work and human resources on the basis of ‘I have a skill’ – ‘I need someone with specific knowledge’. This app is intended to be a link between young people and employers. It will encourage:
• greater adaptability to the individual's employment needs and wishes,
• the use of innovative knowledge,
• greater flexibility in the labor market,
• the integration of social networks.
The initial idea is to form a closer connection with young people. The majority of young individuals have created FB and Google+ profiles, therefore both formal and informal knowledge can be spread on these platforms. Moreover, employers can form a better and more realistic profile of the job seeker. Using a mobile app, young job seekers will be able to apply for a job in a less bureaucratic environment, thus communicating directly with the employer. The final result of this GFI will be a developed mobile app that will enable people to post, search for a job, as well as posts from employers looking for new co-workers.

Within the GFI – Active Youth, various workshops, lectures and other activities for young people are organized to encourage them to become more active in the search for solutions related to their future employment situation. The goal is to provide them with new skills in professions that are in shortage in the Maribor area (handicraft businesses: painters, electricians, masons), consequently helping them to find a job or starting their own company.

The participants are young people, who want to acquire new skills in jobs currently unpopular among young people. Pupils from the Secondary School for Civil Engineering Maribor, accompanied by their adult mentors, will take the role of teachers. The initiative for this GIF came from different young individuals as well as from youth organizations in Maribor following the presentation and discussion of the idea from the partner city of Valencia, Spain. On November 28, 2013, the first workshop ‘Promotion of Occupations in Shortage’ has taken place in the premises of the City Youth Council Maribor. The participants were young people who wanted to acquire new skills in the field of handicraft businesses. This workshop resulted in the renovated premises of the City Youth Council Maribor. Due to the successful work, different places owned by the Municipality of Maribor are to be renovated within similar workshops in 2015 and 2016.