In the last weeks, the project partner of FOREST, Rural Women National Association, has organised different meetings at the Technological High School, in Rucar, Arges country, with the particular focus to analyse the state of art of forestry workers in Romania.
A vaste of public, as teachers, experts, students, has adhered to these interesting initiatives contributing to arise discussions and bring their experiences and point of views.
The workshops were a great opportunity to bring attention to specific and detailed aspects, as the training according to the national forestry policy, the real needs of workers and conditions at work in this field. In particular, the dialogues and debates were focused on 3 relevant themes:
- Forestry workers training in Romania and the state of the art based on SWOT analysis.
- Certification methodology for the forestry workers (basic skills, competences and evaluation).
- Ways of supporting students in understanding and applying safety conditions at work.
The forestry experts also underlined the importance of the project initiative for equalizing the forestry workers' competences at the EU level. Moreover, they agree that even if the Romanian forestry training programmes and certification methodologies are the same all over the country, it should be harmonized at the EU level.
This theme is considered an advantage for the forestry field in Romania because it has already overcome the fragmentation of competence and skills, but it is very important to have the same harmonisation in all the European countries.
They have also examined that a lot of Romanian forestry workers got jobs in different EU countries, as untrained employees, because their Romanian training certificates were not accepted abroad.
The last point is considered as a disadvantage element on which it is necessary to put all the efforts and the partners of the FOREST project are going in this direction trying to create a common strategy to standardise the level of forestry worker's competencies and skills.
Last but not least, the participants noticed an almost absence of women in forestry activities and all the FOREST's consortium, aware of this limited involvement of them, promotes women's inclusion in the forestry sector.
In conclusion, during the meetings the romanian people has underlined the necessity to have in all European countries a common level of training, competence and skills for the forestry employees in order guarantee to all citizens their right to move and to work everywhere, including more women in this sector.
