JOBS – Job opportunities for business spreading, City of Prokuplje
Monika Petrovic, IOM Serbia, mpetrovic@iom.int
Jelena Maric Lukovic, UNDP Serbia, jelena.maric.lukovic@undp.org
Related Sustainable Development Goals and Global Compact for Migration Objectives
Summary
Under the readmission agreement registered by the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (CRM), the Roma community continues to dominate in the total number of returnees after Serb returnees. Nearly none of them have any information about the possibility of assistance programmes upon return which amounts to the reality that little has been done to integrate readmission returnees in Serbia. The City of Prokuplje intends to replicate and expand good practice from a project previously implemented with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), where young people are trained and enabled to acquire necessary knowledge and skills to find a secure source of income, seeing as local companies still need a trained labour force.
As part of the IOM-UNDP Global Programme on Making Migration Work for Sustainable Development, the project will focus on the Roma population, especially women who mostly lack professional qualifications and contribute to high rates of informal employment in the Western Balkans region, and ensure that those who return from EU countries through readmissions are employed, including self-employed.
Key objective
The main objective of the proposed project is the creation of conditions for gainful employment through training and job placement support which would enable the integration of Roma members into the local community in the City of Prokuplje.
Main activities
- Running two six-month training sessions on sewing, each session for returnees and vulnerable community members;
- Conducting two six-month training programmes on CNC machines for returnees and vulnerable community members;
- Supplying equipment to the Technical School Training Center to provide vocational training to Roma population;
- Providing individualized support in job search and hiring to project beneficiaries via local employment center and direct communication with the employers.
Beneficiaries
Direct beneficiaries:
- 100 Roma men and 60 Roma women returned to Serbia, Prokuplje, within the readmission process.
Indirect beneficiaries:
- Technical school “15 May” Prokuplje,
- Local businesses that will find qualified people to work with,
- The Roma community in the City of Prokuplje.
