JEY

Employment and social security : a dual challenge in the Mediterranean

“JEY” project is a programme “by young people, for young people” in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, led by the Réseau des Ecoles d’Ingénieurs et de Management (RMEI-RMEM), with the support ofOCEMO. It came into being following the observation that Southern Mediterranean countries are faced with a dual challenge:

  • generating employment to cope with the influx of high numbers of young people onto the labour market
  • funding social security to meet the needs of people reaching retirement age.

Support for starting businesses

In order to respond to this difficult issue, it soon became evident that there needed to be initiatives to support the creation of businesses that could offer prospects for young people, and create income to generate the savings required to fund social security. A system was implemented to bring together students, their teachers and partner businesses/organisations to provide unemployed young people with support in starting businesses.

A three-level process

The JEY project operates on three levels:

  1. The first level involves the institutional coordination of partner schools and institutions by RMEI-RMEM and OCEMO. OCEMOundertakes, in particular, to support the project by coordinating institutional players and encouraging synergies between its members and projects, particularly the MedNC network.  
  2. The second level consists of organising students from the Réseau Méditerranéen des Ecoles d’Ingénieurs et de Management(RMEI-RMEM), by setting up student associations, known as “JEY: Jeunes entrepreneurs - Entrepreneurship for Youth”, in order to organise the services available to support business creation. This step is coordinated by a group of students from Kedge Business School, known as “Jey Entrepreneuriat”, a project developed by students from ACCEDE, an association that aims to help job seekers start businesses.  This organisation seeks to share best practice and experiences, assess actions, identify needs, implement methods, monitor actions and offer support. All of these actions are governed by a charter.  
  3.  The third level involves organising collective action for all unemployed young people regardless of whether they have qualifications, work in the informal sector or are based in urban or rural locations, paying special attention to the issue of gender. This is carried out by each JEY organisation, subject to the goals and methods of each group, in accordance with the JEYnetwork’s charter.

The process must help improve access to employment by developing skills and motivation to start and manage businesses.

An action-based approach to learning

The JEY project uses an action-based approach to learning for both the students running the organisations supporting business creation by the unemployed, and the young people requiring help. 

This project is designed both for students in higher education to encourage them to create organisations to support business creation (JEY) by and for young people in their country, and for unemployed young people looking to start and develop businesses.

Partner universities and schools

  • Egypt: American University in Cairo (AUC); Association of French-speaking Engineers in Egypt (AIFE)
  • Lebanon: American University of Beirut; Saint Joseph University; USEK (Holy Spirit University of Kaslik), ESA and the Nouvel Horizon association (member of the Mediterranean Second Chance network - MedNC)
  • Morocco: ENIM (National School of Mineral Industry); EMI; National School of Applied Sciences (ENS); ISCAE (Higher Institute of Accounting and Business Administration); ENCG (National Business and Management School).

Tunisia: ISCAE; Tunisia Polytechnic School, ISG Tunis (Higher Management Institute); ENIM (National Engineering School of Monastir) and ENISO (ongoing).


Photos about JEY

Videos about JEY

Resources

Download all documents relating to Jey program (iconography, PDF, reports…)

Contact

Anis Saidi

Project Manager
anis.saidi@ocemo.org
Tel : 04 95 09 47 82

Myriam Mesbah

Assistant project manager
myriam.mesbah@ocemo.org
Tel : 04 95 09 47 82

Michael Wanang

Kedge Business School Project Manager
michael.wanang@kedgebs.com