Equipment for a "Center for new opportunities"

"Adice has considerable experience in community work. Since 2000, it has demonstrated that it was a permanent structure, possessing adequate human and professional resources. A young association, with unequalled facilities and skilled personnel to promote the return to work, Adice has demonstrated its openness and its incomparable efficiency. In the field, it has succeeded in mobilizing all the initiatives favorable to the fragile population. Its expertise in literacy and adult education projects is now widely recognized."
Maria Candida Cruz

This year, another 800 persons will receive training at the Center for new opportunities. Located in Portugal, at Valongo, near Porto, this training structure is open to the most indigent candidates: jobless, school dropouts, single women, etc.

Raised to the rank of national priority by the Portuguese government, lifelong training is the subject of many communication campaigns. As a consequence of this general mobilization, the Center for new opportunities has become the victim of its success.

Certification of knowledge

Since it was founded in 2005, the Center has steadily expanded its courses in grammar, mathematics and initiation into new technologies. Six teachers have already dispensed training to nearly 1400 adults, ending with a diploma recognized by the State. The close collaboration maintained with the Portuguese Institute for Employment and Vocational Training has served to certify the knowledge and the experience gained. Training, vocational integration: the Center now welcomes hundreds of new candidates. Hence the need for new training rooms and the acquisition of a transport vehicle.

Having received from the town hall of Valongo a plot to enlarge its premises, the association has requested aid from the Veolia foundation to finance their facilities and to purchase the transport vehicle. This will support the Associaçao para o desenvolvimento integrado da cidade de Ermesinde (Adice), which manages the center, and offer a second chance to those whom the school has not managed to train sufficiently.