My Tour4Youth journey: Agnese

Career counselling young people drew her in this project

The Tour4Youth program is an international project consisting of project experts from Finland, Estonia and Latvia. One of them is Agnese, a project expert in Kurzemes plānošanas reģions, Latvia. Agnese’s long career in career counselling brought her to work in Tour4Youth project.

Agnese enjoys working with young people, because it’s always interesting and full of challenges. She has been working as a career counselor for over a decade and was already familiar with these sectors before applying for a job in Tour4Youth.

Every young person is unique and special – some are willing to learn new skills and some need more motivation

Before her current role in the project, Agnese was already familiar with advising young people on career opportunities.

“I also advise young people on personal development on a daily basis. I had worked less with young people in the catering sector, but in general, every young person is unique and special, regardless of their chosen field.“

As she has worked with young people before, she has gained valuable insight into what kind of things young people are interested in this project:

“In my opinion, what appeals most to young people is the fact that there is a paid internship and the opportunity to acquire valuable knowledge in a self-study course. Also, the experience gained during the internship, because the selected internship places invest a lot of effort in training young people and providing them with knowledge.”

Agnese says she has gained greater understanding of education programs such as the Tour4Youth project she is working in. She has also improved her knowledge of different methods for working with young people and creating a safe environment. There were also valuable materials in the online course.

“I also became convinced that young people are willing to learn new skills and complete a course through self-study. But unfortunately, there are many young people who have difficulty planning their time and motivating themselves!”

These career sectors need to be made more prestigious

Like many of the project workers have also expressed in their stories, Agnese can relate to the fact that the young people aren’t that eager to travel abroad for an internship. This has been surprising for Agnese as well:

“Young people’s reluctance to go on international internships because they are afraid of traveling alone and communicating in English! As well as the fact that very few young people had previously visited a career counselor.”

Agnese would like to offer her advice for young people to gain employment:

“Be confident in your skills and strive for growth by taking advantage of the opportunities of various projects!”

For further actions on building these themes after this Tour4Youth project ends, she gives practical suggestions:

“Create a repository of good practice examples so that other young people can be inspired to choose these sectors and participate in projects. Perhaps more on a national level, these sectors need to be more prestigious and better paid. Third suggestion is to create infographics about career opportunities in each sector!”