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Have you recently needed a plumber, a painter, a handyman around the house? Have you turned to Google, friends of friends, come across a “Joe” who didn’t solve your problem, or left you waiting for a solution for weeks? You’re not the only one in this situation. The shortage of tradespeople in the market is not just a matter of friends moving to a new house, but primarily of employers and company managers who, in the absence of staff, have been involved in supporting vocational colleges and dual schools. Targeting the same shortage, in the context of low enthusiasm among young people to pursue such professions, an NGO in Cluj has launched a unique project: the “Beard Brothers School”, the project that generated the organization’s 13th campaign. The young bearded men who are part of the association say they want to build a place where people can “learn a trade”. Before that, they ran a number of other projects: they rehabilitated homes for the needy, equipped hospital wards, developed a social ambulance project and a community taxi for people with disabilities.
The idea of a “school of trades” was launched two years ago, but after the outbreak of the pandemic the young people shifted their focus to procurement for the health system, they explain. Even with this enforced break, the NGO is almost halfway through the budget for the “school”: €145,674 has been raised. The costs of the BBSchool project are estimated at €300,000, and the first stage is the construction of the building, which will be about 400 square meters, on land near Cluj-Napoca.
It should be mentioned at the outset that the “BB school” (“Beard Brothers school”) is not really a school. It will be an “after school” type structure, but it will be taught by specialists from various fields, and the NGO’s plan is that the diplomas received by the graduates will be officially recognized, explains Lucian Șteț, one of the founding members of Beard Brothers. As far as the “school subject” is concerned, a few interesting trades have been outlined so far, which young people can learn here: welder, electrician, painter, bricklayer. “What we see is lacking on the job market,” says Șteț.
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The building of about 400 sq m will have 4-6 workshops, and the courses will take 3-6 months, depending on the qualification. As for the students, the target would be 320-400 graduates a year. The project will continue to be managed by the association once it is up and running, but its implementation will be supported by specialised companies.
“We have had a number of discussions with companies in the market and there are already several interested in contributing to the project. We have, for example, a company in the energy infrastructure sector, whose representatives told us that if we do the school, they will help us with authorized personnel, tools, what we need to train people. On the CNC side there are a lot of requests. They would help us, they would bring trainers, and then we can recommend them, so that people trained here can also work. First of all, man as a resource is getting scarcer, more and more expensive. And the quality is very poor. We’re interested that whoever comes out of here knows the job. Then you can also do on-the-job training, but you know the job,” says Șteț.
He adds that the “school” will not just have workshops. “We would like to teach people who come here related things. I mean: maybe you want to be an electrician, but what about setting up your own company, to work legally, to set up a website to promote your small business? We’d like to teach people to think for themselves, not just be employees of a company,” says the BB representative.
The initiators of the idea say they would like to convey to young people that having a job can be cool. Here would be a chance to attract talented people.
“Let’s think about how things are now. Let’s say you have a problem and you need to turn to a craftsman. Most of the people who come in, they don’t know the trade terribly well, but they charge you good money and, at the end of the day, most likely don’t even give you a receipt. You, a young man out of high school, if you see such practices, you will never take such a man as an example. We want to change this idea, to tell young people that you can do a good job, that it can be cool to have a job, that you can do it legally, cleanly,” summarises Șteț.
The project has two branches: a social branch, aimed at young people from foster homes or families in a precarious situation (they will benefit from the school’s services free of charge), and an economic-social branch. On this strand, courses and workshops will have a pre-determined cost and the funds raised will provide the same services for those who cannot afford them.
The target group is primarily 12th grade graduates.
“We want to show them that there’s nothing low about having a job, that it’s cool, that you can do something good, quality, professional. We especially want to take children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and for them these courses would be free. The workshops will also be open to others, we will have a fee, so that we fund those who need it for free. It would be ideal if we could create a circuit: 50 students who pay support another 50 who can’t afford it, and when we draw the line we are on 0”, describes the BB representative.
What is the status of the project?
In terms of deadlines, project coordinators who launched the project two years ago hope construction will finally begin next year. More specifically, the plan is to start work on the design and permitting in March. For the time being, the final negotiations are underway for the land on which the building will be erected, in the vicinity of Cluj-Napoca. One option would be for the building to be built to Passive House standards.
“We’ve been to trade schools, we’ve seen what they look like. Some of them look like they’re straight out of the 1980s, there are rooms with peeling walls, even though there are painters’ workshops. For us, that doesn’t make much sense,” says Șteț.
“We want to have a modular building, that’s how we thought of it, we want to be as flexible as possible. If in the next five years certain trades don’t matter as much, we’ll be able to adapt, we’ll look for other partners. We have to be flexible, we have to be market-oriented,” adds the BB representative.
How did the Beard Brothers come up with the idea for this project?
“We are now able to do something like this, to teach, with experts, as we think it should be done. We also have The Tutors program, with mentoring services, free of charge. A few years ago, we focused on preparing for the BAC, now recently we had an edition for financial education. The idea started primarily from the need in the market and things that we were facing. We need an electrician, you can’t find one or you find a bad one. Businesses are complaining too, there’s clearly a shortage. And it’s a mentality thing. If you ask a young person what they want to be when they grow up they’ll say they plan to be an influencer, a DJ, no one’s going to say they want to work as a blacksmith, a welder, you don’t associate them with something cool. In fact, they’re all well-paying jobs, and if you put them in the right context, it can be something you enjoy doing too. Being a blacksmith doesn’t mean you’re working at the factory, you can make engine saddles or other things you resonate with. There are also younger parents who see the potential, who understand that young people can have a future here, that they can also learn a trade like this, as well as something else. Now, in the pandemic, someone who has had 2-3 majors has been able to cope better with the challenges. Did you work in HoReCa and find yourself unemployed? If you know, for example, how to do woodworking, you’ll do fine. In Target there are also those who need retraining, a person over 40 must feel a bit lost to see that no one is hiring their specialization”, adds Șteț.
Job vacancies for vocational graduates
22,296 job vacancies are available at the national level during this period, according to data provided by economic agents in the records of the National Agency for Employment (ANOFM). Of these, 6,833 positions are for people with professional qualifications (mechanical locksmith; industrial garment maker operator in fabrics, knitwear, synthetic materials; welder;
lorry/heavy goods vehicle driver; sub-assembly fitter)