With the labor market becoming more globally connected than ever, today’s workplace comprises a diverse mix of people, with co-workers from many different cultures and backgrounds working alongside each other. This means that besides the new technical skills they need to develop, workers from the coal industry sector need to build new competences and abilities for intercultural communication. This skilling and upskilling process is one of the most critical challenges for the just and successful implementation of the European Green Deal.
In this vein, the DEMANDS project has been designed on the basis of providing adequate and strategic training in terms of building intercultural communication competences for low skilled and working age adults from the lignite industry sector.
Five partners from three European countries—the University of Western Macedonia, as the coordinator, the Public Power Corporation and the spin-off company of the Democritus University of Thrace (Greece), SIDROCO (Cyprus) and the global provider of technological and engineering services AYESA (Spain), with presence in 23 countries in Europe—will collaborate over the next three years for their shared goal to provide training to low-skilled adults for the development of their ntercultural communication skills.
As part of the DEMANDS project, short training activities will be organized for both adult educators and workers, with a special focus on those affected by the coal-transition. The training activities will be supported and enhanced by the development of an Open Educational Platform with the integration of all teaching material that will be produced and with an individual assessment toolkit for testing the intercultural communication competencies gained.
The DEMANDS project promotes interdisciplinary cooperation between Universities, VET providers, ICT experts and experts in intercultural communication as well as energy providers allows for a comprehensive assessment of current and emerging skill requirements in various industries. This proactive approach ensures that coal industry (ex)workers will be equipped with the necessary soft skills required by the job market, thereby enhancing their employability pathways.
The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ program under Partnerships for Cooperation in the field of Vocational Education and Training and is coordinated by Professor Panagiotis Sarigiannidis of the University of Western Macedonia.
University of Western Macedonia
