One Page Summary

The need that we address with our solution is a trend in society towards new forms of employment in the employment market of Bologna. This shift means that people need a different mind,- and skill-set in order to be socio-economic independent. There is a trend of entrepreneurship that offers a lot of opportunities. A big group of people have the support system and role models to develop the skills necessary to take these opportunities. But for a different, more vulnerable group this is difficult, because they don’t have an education system or role models supporting them. It takes an extra step for this group of people to be able to take these opportunities. It takes trend en innovation sensibility! We can develop this by the use of strong voluntary role models (mentors), job shadowing and training in trend and innovation sensibility.
By asking stakeholders to become mentors for the target group, you also create a shared responsibility regarding the success of the participants. Our solution is based on the best practises in the Netherlands.

In practical terms, our solution aims to satisfy that need by offering:

1 Development of a custom tailored Mentoring Toolkit
Mentoring offers long lasting support to the target group. A mentoring relationship usually lasts for at least one year. A mentor can support a job seeker in becoming aware of their talents and developing a trend and innovation mind-set. Mentors can come from different layers of society, but are always matched based on recognition and acknowledgement. The toolkit consists of: 

- Finding the target group (job-seekers)
- How to find the question behind the question and finding the motivation of the target group.
- Finding mentors and stakeholders
- Binding mentors to the program
- Intakes with the job-seekers and the mentors
- Matching the mentors with the job seekers.
- Monitoring of the match.
- Ending the match.

2 Job-shadowing
Job shadowing offers people the opportunity to see what a job is all about. You can ‘shadow’ someone doing his or her job, for example an entrepreneur, a dentist or a car mechanic. This gives job seekers the opportunity to make well informed decisions.

3 Workshop on how to implement the mentoring toolkit and job shadowing.
4 Development of a ‘trend and innovation sensitivity workshop.
This workshop will be focussed on developing a mind-set necessary to take the opportunities that the shift in society offers. The training can be developed together with the challenge owner in order to custom tailor it to the needs of the target group.

The implications of our solutions are that we need to find:
- Organizations in the region of Bologna that work with the target group.
- Entrepreneurs that come from the same background as the target group.
- Stakeholders that support the project and want to invest their time in the jobseekers.
- Support from local government would be a bonus.
- People that want to implement our solution, this means: running the mentoring program, going through the training and working out the program together with us.

Based on translated Google finds, there are no similar programs in the region of Bologona.

The solution has already been implemented and tested in the Netherlands. The strengths of the solution are:
- Using role models in order to find and motivate the job seekers.
- Matching based on recognition and acknowledgement.
- Long lasting relationships and thus support for the job seekers.  
- Actively involving stakeholders in order to achieve shared responsibility.
- Giving people new perspectives and insights and the chance to make well informed decisions for their future.

 The weaknesses of the solution are:
- Finding and binding the target group takes effort, you must work together with other organizations.
- Finding strong role models can be challenging, it takes a certain way of asking people.