At Blariacum College, a pilot of the project 'Seigen Nashi', which translates as 'no limits' in Japanese, has been running for vmbo students for the past year. Concept creators Marcel Stoffels and Leo Hermans of SpreekPeper helped three hundred students to look for their qualities and intrinsic motivation for a future career choice. The project will have a follow-up in 2023 due to its success. Dean Dennis Willemssen: "Schools need to pay more attention to children's dreams."
Blariacum College and SpreekPeper found each other in the Seigen Nashi project, as both parties were keen to see a follow-up to Talent on Stage. "This was a large, nationwide and annual project aimed at bringing vmbo students closer to the labour market," Willemssen said. "In 2019, however, the plug was pulled due to too high costs." Marcel Stoffels and Leo Hermans (communications agency SpreekPeper) provided the job application training at Talent on Stage. Following a brainstorming session with Ingrid van Heyster (Adecco), Dennis Willemssen and Pia Lamers (Blariacumcollege), they were commissioned to draw up a similar concept. Stoffels: "We were allowed to present this concept to the Labour Market and Knowledge Development Committee of Entrepreneurial Venlo. The members were enthusiastic and urged us to take the concept further. From there, Seigen Nashi was born: a project to help young people search for their dream profession and their qualities. The message of the project is that you can think broadly and (almost) nothing is impossible. Many young people make choices due to external factors, such as parental preferences that are whispered to them. We want to break away from that, as figures show that 37 per cent drop out of college early and 24.1 per cent are unhappy in their jobs. Therefore, with the Seigen Nashi project, we teach children to make a choice not from their heads, but from their hearts."
Field of work in the classroom
The Seigen Nashi project, which started in February last year, Marcel Stoffels carried out with colleague: Gijs Hillmann. In three lessons, the gentlemen had students search for their qualities and interests using various models. Stoffels: "Ikigai was an important concept here, this stands for the question: 'what do you get out of bed for in the morning?' The importance of a good network the students learned through the 'Law of Seven Degrees of Separation'. "In principle, you can reach everyone in the world in a link of up to six intermediate steps. To using a concrete example - Gijs' brother and sister-in-law both work at Microsoft in America - I showed that I can (in principle) reach Bill Gates. The insight into this model left a crushing impression on the students."
The final component of the Seigen Nashi project is bringing the field of work to the students. "In the first two lessons, we talk to students about their dream profession," says Stoffels. "In the last lesson, we pick a few dream professions of students and bring some professionals from the field, digitally via Teams, into the lesson. Here, we use our own network with the aim of getting the highest achievable professional from the profession involved. For one student who wanted to do 'something' in Formula 1, we managed to enlist Rob Kamphues via LinkedIn. He told about his career, which was interesting for the student and gave her the drive to pursue her dream of working in Formula 1."
For another student, who had written down lawyer as her dream profession, Sander Oudenhoven (lawyer at Voor de Zaak), attended the lesson. Oudenhoven: "The pupil thought it was impossible to continue studying to become a lawyer from vmbo. Me I explained that this is possible, as I myself am a high school graduate. But I did make it clear that to study law you have to be more theoretical than practical, be prepared to work hard and love reading because you spend a lot of time with your nose in the books. With the right willpower, you can achieve your goal, especially if it is a concrete profession. The does not happen by itself, was my message." Oudenhoven thinks it is necessary for a project like Seigen Nashi to take place in schools. "A Making career choices is difficult at that age. The is good that the field is creating awareness about professions and telling what the path is towards them. Me advise other entrepreneurs to also invest time in such projects, to invest in the next generation. She are our future after all. At the same time, you have the chance to present your company to the students, with the one eye on vacancies in the future."
Value-added project
The Seigen Nashi Project will also continue in 2023. "Not only at Blariacum College, as Valuascollege and College Den Huster have also committed to this project," Willemssen says with a smile. According to the dean, every student at the vmbo will benefit from participating in the project. "It vmbo stands for preparatory secondary vocational education, but in practice, teachers are too preoccupied with their own subject and the required results. There too little attention is paid to pupils' qualities and dreams and the reality of the outside world." According to the dean, the project may later be given to havo and vwo pupils, but as a start, the vmbo pupil is a proper target group for this project. "Socially, they are more often portrayed negatively, while we need this group extremely badly in the future. Through Seigen Nashi, they get the realisation that they matter; that is the added value of this project."
