MACEDONIA
http://www.getonlineweek.eu/macedonia/
The focus of this year’s activities was on Internet
safety, particularly for young people with disabilities
and the importance of digital skills for employability.
The campaign started with an inclusive workshop
for high school students with and without disability.
The workshop was organized in cooperation with
the state Directorate for Personal Data Protection,
and hosted by the Nikola Karev high school.
Second day of the campaign was marked with
practical training for 26 students from State
University of Tetovo to observe the work of
beneficiaries with different types of disability and to
gain advice on how to use assistive technology. This
was the first time Open the Windows cooperated
with the State University. This collaboration lead
to a Memorandum for Collaboration between the
University and Open the Windows.
The main event of the campaign was the conference
“ICT and employment: necessity and opportunities”
in Skopje to contribute to raising awareness of the
needs and potential benefits of using ICT as a skill
for equal opportunities to the open labor market.
Discussions identified several issues such as the lack
of accessibility as a major barrier to persons with
disabilities, a need for changes in the educational
curricula, investments to be more oriented to
software in the IT field, instead of hardware, etc.
THE NETHERLANDS
http://www.getonlineweek.eu/netherlands/
For the second year the Dutch National ‘Make
IT Work!’ PR campaign was organised, drawing
attention to the importance of e-skills for
employability and for social inclusion in general.
Digital Champion of the Netherlands Tineke
Netelenbos also endorsed GOW in her blogpost for
Digital Single Market: https://ec.europa.eu/digitalsingle-market/en/blog/skilling-eskills
‘Make IT Work!’ aims to motivate all those with
basic ICT skills to practice their skills and learn
new competences. Digital Help Plaza (‘Digitaal
Hulpplein’)–an online platform–was set up for
people to test their digital skills and, if necessary,
refer them to physical and online ‘practice
environments’. So called Digital Aid Centres
provided digital training in over 500 locations during
the week of 14-20 March. Estimated 3 million Dutch
households were activated thanks to the campaign.
In addition, GOW 2016 was officially launched in
Amsterdam on 4 March together with ECP and
Dutch Digital Champion. To read more about the
event, please go here: http://getonlineweek.eu/
gow-2016-launch-in-amsterdam-digital-skills-is-afoundation-but-it-doesnt-end-there/
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