Peers#EU is the organisational backbone of the civic education courses which are performed by the trainers in the sending and hosting institutions. Accordingly, trainees are already confronted with preparatory tasks before they start their journey to the hosting country. Furthermore, the trainers in the hosting institutions can access all necessary course material or information that they need for performing their civic education component. Eventually, trainees are further engaged via Peers#EU after their stay in the hosting country. Therefore, the Peers#EU facility is the trainees' main contact point in terms of their civic education during their VET mobility programme. In general, it may be conceivable to extend the Peers#EU platform and make it the central contact point for the whole programme. This could be an optimal further usage of the Skills#EU project which goes well beyond the lifetime of the project.
BLENDED LEARNING
The Peers#EU web-portal is providing all the material as well as methodological guidelines for assisting trainers to perform the civic education components of the mobility programme. These will be available in a trainers' section and contain course elements which can be used before, during, and after the stay of the trainees in a hosting country and institution.
MANAGING THE STAY
Taking part in a mobility programme comes with a wide range that needs to be organised. There is plenty of paperwork and everyday needs like housing or transport need to be solved. Peers#EU is designed to facilitate trainees coping with these organisational demands. They can access all necessary paperwork that is related to their stay. They an obtain relevant contact information that is important for either their job or information for their personal life like contacts for housing possibilities, contacts of health institutions, etc. Once trainees are having a problem Peers#EU shall assist them in solving it.
SOCIAL MEDIA COMPONENT
The VET mobility programme is sometimes criticised for the lack of communication among the trainees who are visiting one specific country or hosting institutions. Obviously, there are too few possibilities to connect and to get to know each other. This sometimes has a negative impact on the trainees mobility experiences. Accordingly, Peers#EU has a social media component which is connecting the trainees before, during and after their stay in a foreign country. They can exchange information about their experiences, can meet up personally and create themselves a social environment.
