BUSINESSMED, represented by its Secretary General, Mrs. Jihen Boutiba Mrad, took part at a workshop entitled “Boosting Youth employability in the Mediterranean: which role for internships? Lessons learnt and future perspectives of HOMERe UfM-labelled project” which was held on July 13^th 2017 in Barcelona, in the framework of RMEI’s General Assembly.

This workshop, organized in the framework of HOMERe Project, aims at increasing the employability of students from more than 100 top universities members of the Mediterranean Network of Engineering Schools through international traineeships. HOMERe project currently involves 4 North Mediterranean countries (Spain, France, Greece, and Italia) and 5 South Mediterranean Countries (Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia). The founder institutions of HOMERe Project are RMEI and the French Foreign Commerce Advisors.

This session allowed students, enterprises, civil society organizations and higher education institutions to formulate operational recommendations for the development of international training programs in the region.

In the presence of Mr. Fathallah Sijilmassi, General Secretary of the UfM, Delphine Borione, Senior Deputy Secretary General of the UfM, stated in her opening speech the importance of internship mobility role on an international scale, and insisted on the win-win side for both companies which get access to talented students and knowledge on local markets and culture, and for young people who gain new professional perspective and competencies.

HOMERe helps young people to access easily to labor market and allows a carrier placement as Youssef Berdoul mentioned, as an intern who benefited from this experience.

In this regard, BUSINESSMED Secretary General, Mrs. Jihen Boutiba Mrad introduced as moderator the findings of regional integration and human development challenges in the region, by focusing on the problems related to satisfaction degrees of employers, particularly in the South of Mediterranean and the main obstacles faced by the two keys-actors (student/companies).The session was animated by two speakers: Youssef Elhamma Moroccan founding CEO of www.stagiaire.ma and Mohamed Lakhlifi Vice-President and Moroccan founding CEO, MLK/conseil and pioneer of HOMERe project.

During this meeting, BUSINESSMED took part in the elaboration of the work plan related to the upcoming steps within the project, namely the creation of HOMERe  local groups in each countries, the geographic extension to others UfM member countries and the identification of new target beneficiaries.