Abstract:

The success story between UNIVALI – Universidade do Vale do Itajaí and Instituto Crescer Movimento Cidadania e Juventude is marked by a strategic partnership that has already lasted 12 years. This collaboration is the foundation for professional qualification and development projects and programs that have already served and transformed the reality of more than 15.000 young people and adolescents in situations of social vulnerability.

Throughout this solid journey, the initiative's focus has remained unwavering: to convert vulnerability into a concrete opportunity for the future, paving a secure and formal path for young people and adolescents aged between 14 and 18 to access the workplace.

The projects and programs developed are the result of a central, three pillars objective that guides the collaboration:
a) Fostering Citizen Education,
b) Stimulating Youth Leadership (Protagonismo Juvenil), and
c) Ensuring Professional Qualification for the 4.0 Economy.

The success of this proposal lies in its ability to integrate advanced technological training with the intensive development of socioemotional skills (soft skills). Together, these elements form a crucial foundation for breaking cycles of vulnerability and combatting child labor, which afflicts the daily reality of the audience served.

Over 12 years of partnership, UNIVALI has consolidated itself as a strategic pillar whose impact is perceived in three crucial dimensions:
1. Expanding Horizons: The continuous holding of classes in higher education environments is the action with the greatest symbolic and practical value. Access to the campus acts as a catalyst, allowing young people to glimpse the concrete possibilities of continued education. This experience is fundamental for developing their Life Project, stimulating critical-reflective thinking, and representing an effective break from the cycle of poverty and social exclusion;
2. Promoting Equity: Throughout these years, the target audience, historically confronted with logistical and financial obstacles, has had their full participation guaranteed by the logistics offered. UNIVALI and Instituto Crescer remove the main barrier to access by ensuring exclusive and secure transportation to classes on campus. This measure is not merely a benefit, but an act of promoting equity, ensuring that social vulnerability is not an impediment to accessing high-quality training; and
3. Technological Training: The annual workload of 760 hours, with modules on Communication, the World of Work, and Technologies, is delivered with excellence thanks to the cutting-edge infrastructure made available by UNIVALI.

The use of the computer labs is crucial for enhancing skills in Technologies, preparing young people, in alignment with the 4.0 Economy, for contemporary demands such as digital fluency.

The partnership, which has already benefited over 15.000 adolescents, adopts the methodology of the International Network of Creative Schools (RIEC), based on Transdisciplinarity, Complexity, and Eco-formation.

To complement the excellence of the professional training and access to the UNIVALI space, the projects count on a multidisciplinary technical team composed of: a Coordinator, Pedagogue, Psychologist, Social Worker, and Instructors, who provide socioemotional support and family monitoring. All these actions aim at Youth Leadership, promoting socio-occupational inclusion and the full restoration of citizenship.

Keywords:

Partnership, professional qualification, young people.