Today, EURATEX, COTANCE and CEC hosted the first TCLF SkillBridge Stakeholders Event, an important step towards forming regional skills partnerships by bringing together various stakeholders from industry, education, and public sectors in Europe. Co-financed by the European Commission, TCLF SkillBridge aims to establish and nurture regional partnerships between TCLF industries, regional authorities, and universities and VET providers. The project will target up to 25 European regions with a strong concentration of textile, clothing, leather or footwear industries. This regional focus will allow the development of specific action plans related to reskilling and upskilling, which meet the needs of each target region. The project will support the creation of such partnerships, facilitate community exchanges for knowledge sharing, and provide support to SMEs, enabling them to upskill and reskill their workforce in tune with the evolving demands of the industry.

The first-ever serious game for the footwear industry has been recently launched and tried across Europe, and already counts with more than 5000 users. The video game, funded by the Erasmus+ ShoeGAME project and developed by partners from Belgium, Romania, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, aims to introduce children to the footwear industry through a challenging and entertaining methodology. The overall objective is to attract younger generations to footwear studies and professional careers. The ShoeGAME, best played on computers and tablets, lets players explore challenges and puzzles in different departments of a footwear company with economic problems. The game takes about 45 minutes to complete and consists of 25 mini challenges that teach about observation, strategic thinking and other soft skills. The better the players complete the challenges, the more the company’s performance indexes - money, staff, clients, and sustainability - grow, the more profitable the company becomes.