CASYS Project

„Culinary Arts Education in Support of Youth Employment and Social Inclusion (CASYS)“, Project Ref. No. 2015-1-BG01-KA204-014346

Implementation period: September 2015 – September 2017.

CASYS Project is supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union and got a recognition for gaining the highest number of points among the three project proposals funded within Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices within the Strategic Partnerships in the field of adult education.

This initiative is the result of joint efforts by partners coming from 7 countries: Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian organisation International College is a leading partner. It is also one of the founders of “Culinary arts and hospitality” Association, as well as well-established institution holding Vocational training centre license, with a greater than 10-year history. The both organisations together present Bulgaria in this initiative. The other partners are vocational education and training centres, organisations providing adult education opportunities, universities and networks of non-for-profit organisations

The main priorities of the project include:

Enhancing further development and wider use of digitally-based learning and teaching methods in education and youth work
Fostering the entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship education of young people

The core activities were defined within:

development of an interdisciplinary culinary arts training course suitable for adult learning and easily adaptable to tertiary and vocational education. The topics are related to the sustainability, social and innovation aspects of culinary arts. The course is complemented by flexible learning pathways between different types and levels of education and training, an LLL guidance system, a trainee retention and degree productivity strategy for adult learning providers and a procedure for the validation of skills acquired through informal and non-formal learning and work experience. The course will also be delivered in the form of e-learning, where the online training platform will be digitally integrated with a blog on culinary innovations designed to make trainees co-creators in the teaching process;
creation of a Social Incubator dedicated to providing consultation, advice and assistance to culinary businesses engaged in innovations or wishing to undertake activities aimed at having social impact, at implementing social and environmental responsibility initiatives. The Social Incubator shall implement a set of pilot activities aimed at mobilizing the social impact of the culinary business and at demonstrating the interconnections between the labour market on the one hand, and formal, non-formal education, vocational training and other forms of learning on the other hand.