ARES

ARES is an VET centre that has been working since 1988 in Campobasso (Italy) providing services both for private and public organizations.
ARES supplies:
– Career guidance activities addressed to long term unemployed people and unemployed people in general
– Enterprise creation courses for over 50 unemployed women
– Courses to become experts in energy management and certification
– Courses about first aid, safety in the work place, fire prevention, quality assurance plan
– Special training for people in redundancy fund system.
In the last 2 years, it specialized in higher level VET courses providing graduate students with professional qualifications in the field of career guidance (career adviser) and communication in educational contexts (facilitator of communication for students with special needs).
ARES provides a set of key services to the Public Job Centres of the Province of Campobasso:
– First level guidance: welcoming, information, documentation, agenda setting and second level career guidance services planning
– EURODESK office
– Migrants assistance.
In 2013 ARES was the operative partner of the project CERTLAB (Certification Laboratory), funded by the EU Funds for Third Country Nationals and the Italian Ministry of Interior, aimed at promoting the employability and the economic and social integration of the immigrants (caregivers and agriculture workers). The focus of the project was the design, the testing and the validation of an innovative methodology to recognize competences already acquired and to validate them through a certification process, in order to make them more visible and valuable for possible employers. The certification of competences was therefore intended as an integrated empowerment intervention.
The project applicant were the Public Employment Services of the Province of Campobasso. ARES, as the operative partner, grounded its work in the previous research and experience within the LLV learning Partnership “TRI-LAMP” project and in other similar small local interventions.
In December 2014 ARES has designed a Capacity Building intervention for the local institutional network about migration. It has been approved and funded and it started in February 2015. The intervention is based on a focused training about administrative procedures, intercultural mediation, health assistance and general support measures.
It is also specialized in event organization and external communication. It has a Quality System Certification by Certiquality according to ISO 9001:2008 regulations for the EA35 and EA37 sectors (education and services).
Since 2009 ARES is involved in LLP projects. Last year capitalized the experience gained with the Employment Services through a Grundtvig project about job clubs for long term unemployed people, being funded and ongoing. The “European shift” allowed ARES to get in touch with many interesting different realities and to develop relationships and networks. Several people met during international works become part of ARES and now ARES works like a “digital hub” for remote co-working in project design. Under the supervision of the senior staff, a small but powerful group of professionals, all women, located in different part of Italy and Europe, co-work for designing and implementing innovative project ideas – just like the Digital Workplace.