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UAB co-directs an international project to improve employment opportunities for graduates

SPRING
SPRING
Researchers at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV) direct the European project SPRING (Social responsibility through PRosociality based INterventions to Generate equal opportunities). Co-financed by the European Union, the three-year project will develop an innovative intervention model in education to be applied in Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico and Chile.

19/03/2012


From 12 to 16 March experts from eight member universities met in Valparaíso, Chile, to launch the project. In addition to Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and Pontifícia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), participating in the meeting were Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (Colombia), Universidad Nacional San Martín (Argentina), Universidad Privada Domingo Savio (Bolivia), Universidad de las Américas (Ecuador), and Freie Universität Berlin (Germany).

The meeting served to outline the first steps of the project, which does not aim to replace the responsibility of states or their equality policies, but to equip universities with more efficient methods with which to take on social leadership in issues of equality and particularly in access to the labour market under equal conditions for university students living in conditions of poverty.

Methods will be applied to prosocial interventions and prosocial coaching. These methods have yielded good results in businesses, centres for minors, secondary and primary schools, churches, health care centres, in peace processes in Colombia, and with genocide victims in Rwanda. Prosocialism is a concept which basically rose in psychology as a antonym to "antisocialism" which studies and demonstrates the factors and benefits actions such as helping, solidarity, sharing, giving and cooperation have on all those participating, in the groups and societies which take part either as givers or as receivers. Methods applied in the SPRING project can be of benefit to the private and professional life of those participating. Funding for the project by the European Union is 1,245,850 Euros.