The City Council of Paterna, through Paterna City of Business, collaborates with the Exit Foundation in the first edition of the Coach Project in the city, an initiative that will improve the employability of young people in vulnerable situations with the support of the Paterna small and medium business.

The Mayor of Paterna, Juan Antonio Sagredo and the CEO of Fundación Exit, Nacho Sequeira, have signed this morning a collaboration agreement through which SMEs, together with the City Council and the Exit Foundation, will participate in a social project that has a positive effect on young people, companies and schools in the city.

The initiative will take place between April 13 and May 18, with April 3 being the deadline for companies to register and participate in the project.

During the signing of the event, the Mayor of Paterna highlighted "the importance of the business community in this initiative aimed to reduce school failure, since the employees are the ones who, voluntarily and in coordination with the Exit Foundation, interact with the student through actions of social responsibility ”.

Nacho Sequeira, CEO of the Exit Foundation, has highlighted how important it is to carry out social initiatives in the business field, since companies beyond helping, in this case, the youth of Paterna, offer their employees the possibility of developing their skills as well as enhancing the relationship between all the participating companies.

The Coach Project is a volunteer program aimed to socially responsible companies that seeks to improve the job placement of young people in vulnerable situations, working on their orientation and motivation so that these young people continue their training and improve their employability possibilities. After going through the project, 81% of the young people pass their course, 93% intend to continue their studies and 88% improve their self-esteem.

The Exit Foundation trains company volunteers in coaching and mentoring techniques to accompany young people during the process on a journey within the company. They also acquire techniques that they can apply in their day to day while helping to train participants. Young people, in this first contact with the world of work, find their vocation and understand the importance of training in order to access the labor market.

Participants are between 16 and 19 years old and are referred by different social and educational entities and institutes, coming from a school dropout experience.

With 6 editions held since 2016 in the Valencian Community, in the cities of Valencia and Alicante, the Coach Project has had 116 participation, 129 volunteers and 21 companies. This program seeks to face a harsh social reality marked by a high youth unemployment rate, which in the Valencian community stands at 47.25% among young people aged 16 to 19 and at 37.70% in the fringe of 20 to 24 (INE 2017T4), as well as a rate of early school leaving that reaches 20.3% (published in January 2018), according to data from the Ministry of Education.

Since 2008, the year the Coach Project was launched, the Exit Foundation has carried out 73 editions, with the participation of 2,707 volunteers, 2,404 young people, 123 companies and 133 social and educational entities in 9 cities: Zaragoza, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Alicante, Lérida and Cádiz.

The Exit Foundation is a non-profit entity that has been working for 18 years to improve the future of young people through innovative training projects. Network with socially responsible companies and social and educational entities. Fundación Exit is a bridge between the business world and the social world.

To do this, it carries out three projects, each located in a different phase of an insertion itinerary for a young person at risk of exclusion: Coach Project (orientation and motivation of young people), eDuo Project (specialization of young people) and Yob Project ( active job search and youth insertion).