Leading reinvents European Commission's Campaign

Leading adapts the European Commission's “Open Your Mind” Campaign to the digital world in order to attract young people to the textile, clothing, leather and footwear sectors

The “Open Your Mind” campaign is promoted by the European Commission, through EASME (Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) and DG GROW (Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entreperneurship and SMEs), and implemented in Portugal by Leading.

After the beginning of the pandemic and due to the mandatory confinement, the activity calendar has been suspended since March 13, 2020. Leading has not lowered its arms and I find solutions to transform face-to-face actions into digital events. In this new phase, we substituted face-to-face workshops to present the campaign for the realization of two webinars, aimed at students from the 9th to the 12th year, at the age of deciding their careers. The conversion to the online model allowed the presence of several companies, training centers and professionals in the sector, which the physical format would hardly allow to gather. It was also possible to reach more participants, without the space limitation, having registered the participation of 200 students online.

The “Open Your Mind” project aims to attract young people under the age of 30 to strategic sectors for the economy, such as Textiles, Clothing, Leather and Footwear. Given the current context, the campaign moved to the digital environment, through actions that brought together hundreds of students.

The first webinar featured speakers Gonçalo Santos from APIC, Portuguese Association of Tanneries; José Manuel Castro from MODATEX, Professional Training Center for the Textile, Clothing, Clothing and Wool Industry; and Paula Gil from CFPIC, Academia Design e Calçado. The second webinar was attended by Ana Sousa, from Vandoma, a tie exporting company; Hélder Maias, from Grupo Procalçado, owner of the brands For Ever / Wock and Lemon Jelly and Hugo Costa, fashion designer. Both events were conducted by Paulo Gonçalves, Communication Director of APICCAPS, alongside Professor Martinho Oliveira, one of the campaign's ambassadors in Portugal.

After these online initiatives, we proceeded to the final phase of the project where the target audience was around 10,000 students. Through written material such as newsletters and social networks, the “Open Your Mind” project is even more relevant in attracting young people under 30 to the intended sectors. In addition to the collaboration of the Polytechnic Institutes of Lisbon and Leiria who sent the materials to their respective students, we had the participation of the Blue Flag of Europe Association (ABAE). In this case, the dissemination will be at the level of secondary education, vocational education and some higher education institutions. For the younger strata, the objective is to present the campaign, but above all to warn that there are more opportunities in these sectors than can be imagined.

Leading successfully concluded the implementation of the Campaign in Portugal and over nine months the project was presented to about 3,000 students, from more than 400 institutions, including secondary schools, professional schools and higher education. In addition to Portugal, the campaign was implemented in five more European countries - Spain, Italy, Romania, Poland and Germany.