Eco-jobs through distance learning

To promote job creation in the environmental sector, the Ecade project counts on the Internet and a series of initiatives which have taken root in their respective areas throughout the Midi-Pyrénées region.

Social and Employment

Place
Midi-Pyrénées, France

Grant(s)
60,000 € to the Selection Committee at 2005/07/05
  Project leader Ecade (Emploi et Création d'activité dans l'environnement) Ecade

« L'association Conseil et Service intervient à l'échelle de la région toute entière et s'appuie sur des organismes de formation aux compétences bien adaptées à la démarche, qu'il s'agisse des métiers de l'environnement ou de la formation à distance. Ce projet en forme de laboratoire pourrait devenir une référence car il tire sa cohérence d'un constat de terrain, il part de besoins bien identifiés et affiche des objectifs bien calculés. »

Éric Salat

The promotors of the Ecade (employment and business creation in the environmental sector) project, working with the "Conseil et Service" association set up for this purpose, have set themselves a twin objective: fostering the emergence of new activities and the development of employment in the environmental sector, while combatting the kind of inequalities which impair the efforts of those seeking to enter or return to the job market (lack of qualifications, insecurity, remoteness from urban centres). Ecade has therefore set up a resource centre and a remote learning platform, accessible online.
Thanks to this system, some one hundred individuals will have been trained in environmental professions between 2005 and 2008.
The aim is to enable at least sixty of them to go on to work in this sector.

A project which is woven into the regional fabric

Rolled out via a network covering over seventy sites in the Mid-Pyrénées region, the project draws on expert input from public and private partners to meet the requirements of each targeted area: waste management with the Muretain "urban area community" in the Haute-Garonne region, eco-tourism, river bank maintenance and independent sanitation around Millau, recycling of electrical and electronic waste in Tarbes, etc.
As a supplement to regional public entities and private partners, the European Social Fund is covering 50% of the budget, Ecade having been selected further to a call for bids in the context of the European Equal programme, aimed at combatting all kinds of discrimination and inequality in the workplace. Overseen by Clotilde Fressinet, a former Veolia Environnement employee, this social, environmental and citizen-centred project is effectively taken up by Group companies established locally.
The Foundation funded the IT facilities needed to connect the resource centre with the trainee reception centres scattered around the region.