Ready for the German job market

The FIMA project by the Goethe-Institut supports young people from Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil in preparing linguistically and professionally for the transition into vocational training and employment in Germany. Key objectives are to clarify the effectiveness and relevance of the programme’s offerings and to identify opportunities for improvement in future cycles. The focus is on pupils and young adults as participants, their (future) employers in Germany, and the labour market and educational institutions involved.

The accompanying evaluation is based on the Theory of Change and the Goethe-Institut’s “Kultur wirkt!” approach. It captures goal attainment at both output and outcome level, as well as short- and long-term effects at the individual and societal level. To this end, we conduct a needs analysis of participants and employers, and systematically analyse the project’s design, structure, processes, and potential for transfer. The focus is on qualitative methods, supplemented by secondary data analyses and online surveys of participants and employers.

The evaluation reveals how well the project prepares participants for everyday life, vocational training, and employment in Germany, and which factors hinder or facilitate successful transitions. Key outputs include a Theory-of-Change-based impact analysis, concrete recommendations for improvement, and guidance on transfer and scaling opportunities in the field of labour and training migration. In doing so, we support the Goethe-Institut in making FIMA demonstrably more effective and in developing it further.