JUVENTUS Germany: Strengthening mobility - for a social Europe

JUVENTUS is aimed at disadvantaged young people and promotes their integration into the German labour market through company internships in other EU countries. Youths and young adults can gain (learning) experience in other countries, thus improving their prospects on the labour market. The programme promotes the development of participants’ professional prospects with a view to their lasting integration into the labour market.

The core of JUVENTUS is a supervised internship abroad in another EU Member State lasting several months, integrated into a project cycle with intensive preparation and follow-up. The projects are to be implemented by cooperation networks where job centres or employment agencies, businesses and project executing organisations cooperate closely. The projects have to be embedded in the labour market concept specific to the region and in the individual integration process of the participants. Active involvement in the cooperation network is key to accessing the target group. The programme will support unemployed young people in consultation with the responsible job centre.

JUVENTUS helps promote youth employment within the scope of the ESF Plus federal programme. The experience abroad also shows the participants the advantages of a social Europe from a real-life experience.

JUVENTUS is designed to pick up and further develop the approach of the successful previous action line "Integration Through Exchange" (IdA) of the ESF Integration Directive of the Federal Government for the ESF funding period 2014-2020. One of the priorities is further developing reciprocal exchanges – by hosting more young people from abroad in Germany. This will happen in cooperation with other Member States, especially the partners from the transnational learning network "Transnational Mobility Measures for Disadvantaged Youth and Young Adults" (TLN Mobility) and the programmes that will be launched in the future as part of the new initiative of the European Commission ALMA ("Aim Learn Master Achieve"). As such, JUVENTUS will also support the ALMA initiative.

Alongside networking activities at regional level, the programme will therefore be shored up by a sharing of expertise and transfer of quality standards at transnational level.

In addition, model approaches for exploring synergy effects between Erasmus Plus and ESF Plus are to be tested and a sharing of expertise between ESF Plus project operators and project operators/participants of the Erasmus Plus programme will be funded.