Erasmus+ Project

Inclusive Cybersecurity Training for Youth Employment (Cyberskills)

Building job-ready cyber skills for all young people.

Overview of the project

Expected results include improved digital-security awareness and employability among participants, many of whom discover a career direction they did not know was open to them. The partnership delivers a complete blended training programme with an e-learning platform and a serious game, a basic certification scheme recognised by the partners, and a group of trained trainers equipped with reusable learning resources they can keep using with new cohorts. Because the material is modular and available online, youth organisations that were not part of the consortium can adopt it as well. Finally, the project strengthens local-to-EU networks connecting youth work, vocational training and the cybersecurity sector, which is what makes inclusive cyber careers realistic rather than merely desirable.

Key activities start with outreach to youth services and schools, so that the programme reaches young people who would not sign up for a technical course on their own initiative, followed by a skills assessment using a competence-based REWIRE approach that maps what participants already know against recognised European cybersecurity profiles. The partners then co-create a blended curriculum and develop the e-learning platform and the serious game, which turns abstract threats such as phishing, social engineering and weak credentials into situations the learner has to handle. Everything goes through internal testing and consortium feedback before it reaches participants, after which piloting takes place in the partner cities with real groups. In parallel the consortium designs the certification scheme together with the quality and standardisation procedures, and carries out EU-level dissemination towards training providers, employers and public bodies.

The aim of the project

The project equips young people, including those in disadvantaged situations, with foundational to intermediate cybersecurity competences that are directly linked to employability. Cybersecurity is one of the few fields in Europe where demand for staff consistently exceeds supply, yet the entry routes are usually built for graduates and assume prior technical knowledge. Cyberskills opens a different door: an inclusive blended programme combining hands-on workshops, an e-learning platform and an interactive serious game, designed for learners who need a practical starting point rather than an academic one. The project also strengthens the capacity of trainers and youth workers, many of whom feel unequipped to teach this subject, and creates an entry-level certification pathway that gives participants something recognisable to show an employer at the end of the process.

Our Role

Vision Tree (Belgium) leads the Brussels workshops and pilot sessions, where the training material meets its real audience and is revised on the basis of what actually works with young people who are not already comfortable with technology. We co-lead quality assurance and evaluation across the partnership, and we guard accessibility from the start: materials follow Universal Design for Learning principles and plain-language rules, so that a low reading level, a learning difficulty or a limited device does not become a reason to drop out. Vision Tree also supports the localisation of the e-learning content and the development of the certification framework, and manages digital dissemination and stakeholder outreach towards youth services, schools, employment agencies and employers, so that the training connects to real entry points into the labour market.