The right skills can truly be a launching pad for the future. For World Youth Skills Day, which falls on July 15, we want to celebrate young people, who are at the heart of the changes that are necessary in order to get past the challenges and difficulties of the present in a determined, creative way, pushing the world towards sustainable development.
We need a new generation of professionals, innovators and sustainability specialists who can lead society on a path of transformation. It is no coincidence that quality education is included as a key goal for growth in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
In order for this to happen, young people need, first and foremost, a healthy and stimulating environment that provides them with all the tools and opportunities to be able to realize their dreams, in a context that is safe, fair, and inclusive.
This idea is at the center of our Group’s commitment to energy transition, a change that starts with new generations who need to be guided, educated, trained, and prepared to enter the work world in the ever-changing energy sector.
This is why we want to take part in celebrating World Youth Skills Day – an event established in 2014 by the U.N. General Assembly to underscore the need to provide young people with all the tools necessary for making their way in the world and becoming an active, integral part of society. This goal can be achieved by providing young people with innovative educational tools, good job opportunities, and forward-looking policies that encourage them to pursue their ambitions.
This objective requires active collaboration from institutions as well as businesses. It’s necessary to open up a direct dialogue that puts young people in contact with schools, academies, technical training institutes, and companies – in order to put strategies able to pick up on the true needs of new generations, becoming opportunities for concrete personal growth and professional.
To this end, our Group has launched – and in some cases participated in as a partner – numerous initiatives aimed at providing young people with quality training, guiding them toward the careers of the future and allowing them to take their first steps in the work world along a shared path.
In addition to the numerous #EnelUp4Education projects dedicated to the very young with the aim of spreading the culture of sustainability as a driver for development, there are some examples include Energie per Crescere (Energy for Growth), a program created along with ELIS to promote quality professional training and give new generations concrete work opportunities in the area of networks and renewables with our partner companies, and Energie per la Scuola, (Energy for School). This project has a similar objective, training young people by establishing a direct relationship between the worlds of education and business. This is truly a shared path of personal and professional growth where we have brought together students, schools, and training centers. It gives participants the opportunity to acquire new skills via specialized educational curriculums, and, through our partner companies, so they can start their professional careers right away.
With Distretto Italia (District Italy), along with ELIS and many other companies, we are committed to addressing the issue of employment mismatch, which is becoming increasingly common in our country. This involves a network made up of young people, companies, and training centers that come together to support younger generations in making career plans.
We promote the STEM disciplines, which are fundamental for sustainable development, with initiatives like Back to School meant to inspire students to choose to study these subjects at school, especially girls, in order to break down gender stereotypes in the technical and scientific fields.
On World Youth Skills Day, we want to reaffirm the potential new generations as catalysts for change, confirming our commitment to providing them with the skills and opportunities they need to work together to shape a brighter and more sustainable future where nobody is left behind.