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Volies mobilises around 150 volunteers and benefits 2,500 students in ‘Companies that Inspire’.

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More than 200 schools in the Community of Madrid will participate from 2020 in the Xcelence-Schools that Inspire project, promoted by the Bertelsmann Foundation and Fundación Empieza por Educar with the collaboration of the Madrid Regional Ministry of Education and other business entities such as Volies.

The project aims to reinforce the academic and vocational guidance systems in schools so that students can make informed decisions about their future and be prepared to face their educational and professional careers.

The programme is based on three pillars:

  • Incorporate the Xcelence guidance reference framework in secondary schools to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement by carrying out a self-assessment on xcelence.es.
  • Train guidance counsellors and teachers to strengthen the guidance team and lead the guidance strategy.
  • Bringing the professional world closer to students by facilitating experiences in real work contexts in collaboration with companies and social entities through the website empresasqueinspiran.

According to the latest report on The state of guidance according to Xcelence, published by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the schools participating in the project improve their performance in the 10 key areas defined by the Xcelence quality framework, and the relationship with the working environment increases by 20% on average.

Volies & Voluntare, strategics partners

Volies and the Voluntare Network play a fundamental role as strategic partners of this project, promoting career guidance activities such as visits to companies, educational stays or talks with professionals, which are articulated through educational volunteering.

Thanks to this work, this year 22 companies and social entities have collaborated with 43 centres in Madrid to carry out more than 100 guidance activities aimed at secondary school, high school and basic vocational training students, in which more than 150 volunteers have participated.

All activities are coordinated through the website empresasqueinspiran.es, developed by the Bertelsmann Foundation, which connects schools with companies through match technology to increase opportunities and experiences of connection with the professional world of students. Schools can find the activities that best suit their needs and interests based on location, availability, or professional field, among other criteria.

According to the data on the website, the most popular activities this year were talks by professionals in schools (63), followed by visits to companies (18) and educational stays (16), and other activities.

The professional sectors most represented in these actions were industry and engineering (35%) and administration and finance (19%), followed by the social sector (7%) and trade and distribution (6%), among others.

Impact data

Empresas Inspiran Amadeus

Specifically thanks to the dynamisation of Volies:

  • 24 companies have participated.
  • 43 collaborating centres
  • 97 actions:
    63 Talks
    18 Visits to companies and organisations
    16 educational visits

Actions that have had an impact on:

  • 2,462 students directly.
  • Thanks to the collaboration of 149 volunteers.

How to participate

 

The dynamics to participate is very simple:

  • Register your company in empresasqueinspiran.es to be able to publish your offers of activities.
  • Schools will be able to apply for these activities.
  • Your company can then approve or reject the request depending on your availability and resources.

When a company approves a school’s application, you both match and get in touch to finalise the details of the activity.

Activities help to awaken vocations and interests, inspire and broaden professional aspirations, experiment in professional environments, dismantle stereotypes, and raise awareness of sectors and professions.

Picture of Raquel Bibas

Raquel Bibas