The MedNC project completes its first phase in Tunisia and further expansion is foreseen in Spain and Egypt

Barcelona, 29 July 2015. The Mediterranean New Chance (MedNC) project, promoted by the Office of Economic Cooperation for the Mediterranean and the East (OCEMO) in partnership with the Second Chance School of Marseille (E2C-Marseille) and the French Development Agency (AFD) is completing the first phase. The project’s objective is to build a network of accredited “New Chance” schemes for the occupational and social integration of young people excluded from the labour market. Targeting both school dropouts and unemployed graduates, the project is specifically tailored to the context and needs of Southern Mediterranean countries (at this stage Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria) and is based on the successful E2C educational model.

Within the framework of the MedNC project, the ISCAE (Institut Supérieur de Comptabilité et d’Administration des Entreprises) linked to the University of la Manouba concludes the first edition of the ISCAE New Chance programme. The course lasted six months and involved a total of 17 teachers, 15 volunteer trainers and 22 students, 5 of which have successfully found a job and 8 have extended their internship period until September. Benefiting from this successful experience, the promoters of the project are now studying the possibility of expanding the programme to other facilities linked both to the University of la Manouba and also to other Tunisian universities and technical schools.

With a view to enlarging the geographical reach of the project, opportunities for collaboration are being identified between E2C-Marseille and several Spanish labour market integration centres for young people with the support of iesMed, the Mediterranean platform that renders services to social and solidarity economy. At the beginning of July, E2C-Marseille hosted a meeting with CEPS Projectes Socials and the Foundation el Llindar to discuss developing a Spanish E2C network.

The promoters of the project have also established preliminary contacts with Egyptian organisations. Various meetings with institutional representatives, civil society and the private sector (the Alexandrian Business Association and the French Chamber of Commerce in Egypt) have taken place this month.