14/08/2026
When people think of Erasmus+, the most familiar image is university students on exchange between European capitals. But the programme reaches far wider. The Capacity Building in VET strand funds projects involving third countries, with the aim of strengthening vocational education and training systems where the need is greatest.
🌍 SHE-GROWS is precisely that. A project bringing together Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic and Tunisia around a concrete intervention: training 60 rural women in hydroponic agriculture and cooperative entrepreneurship in the regions of Béja and Jendouba. Not aid, but the shared building of skills.
🇹🇳 Tunisia is part of the European Union's Southern Neighbourhood, a priority area for cooperation. SHE-GROWS sits within this framework through a coherent approach: alignment with the FAO 2050 Water Strategy, with the European Digital Transformation Strategy 2025, with the EU's Global Gateway. Not statements of principle, but European instruments woven into the project's daily work, from EQF to ESCO, from Europass to EQAVET.
🔑 What makes this project significant within the Erasmus+ landscape is its replicability. The curriculum, the VET inclusion guidelines, the cooperative model, the Training of Trainers programme: all are transferable tools, applicable to other rural settings in Tunisia and across the wider Neighbourhood.
🧭 SHE-GROWS shows that international cooperation works when it starts from documented needs, builds solutions with the people who will use them and leaves behind structures that endure. Not a theoretical model, but a concrete practice that speaks from the Mediterranean to Europe, and back again.
🔗 Link to website in bio
Project partners: 🇪🇸 EFA El Soto · 🇮🇹 OpenCom · 🇹🇳 Elemtiez · GIY · UTAP · 🇨🇿 Libverda
🇪🇺 Co-funded by the European Union
European Commission
Erasmus+ Tunisia
Efa El Soto
OpenCom Italy
Elemtiez Formation
Grow It Yourself
الاتحاد التونسي للفلاحة والصيد البحري UTAP Tunisie
SŠZaZe A. E. Komerse, Děčín - Libverda, příspěvková organizace