Description of organisation

Cuatrovientos is an Integrated Vocational Training Centre, with the legal form of a Worker Cooperative, whose aim is the comprehensive training of staff capable of entering the socio-labour world, through:
- an educational model based on innovation, entrepreneurship, internationalisation and commitment, as well as equal opportunities (including equity, inclusion and non-discrimination),
- a management model based on continuous improvement and cooperative principles,
- and the participation and collaboration of the educational community (students, former students, families, school staff, companies and collaborating entities).

Currently, 64 workers are part of this project, with a clear social commitment, since its beginnings in 1985, due to the assumption of the cooperative principles established by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the non-profit nature of this type of society and the social purpose for which they are constituted, all aspects that correspond to the principles established by the European Solidarity Corps for the development of volunteer and solidarity projects.

As established in our Mission, the comprehensive training of people, as well as their insertion in a changing socio-labour world, requires a firm commitment to the assumption of professional skills (technical) but also of key skills through non-formal and informal learning, in which work in values, collaboration with other organisations and entities and participation in the development of the social environment, have been gaining ground in all the training actions and projects that we develop.

Therefore, in this teaching-learning process, new objectives have been emerging, such as:
- the sustainable development of the community and our social environment,
- the promotion of an international vision,
- cooperation with social entities (NGOs) through a "new relationship model", all within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, which has led us to develop actions in the framework of non-formal learning throughout life, inside and outside our territory, in order to, within the framework of our mission, generate wealth for the people and the environment that form part of the cuatrovientos community, providing added value to the collaborating people and organisations, as well as encouraging participation internally, through a true "value chain" and fostering a collaborative spirit in the educational community.

The target groups, which correspond to our Stakeholders, we differentiate between those who are directly affected by our Mission (young people in the field of formal training and unemployed people in the field of VET), and those with whom we relate indirectly through our Vision and who we recognise as our social environment or Society (among them, groups and young people outside the formal sphere).

All of them are affected by the axes in which we structure the Cuatrovientos Project: Commitment (sustainability), Professional skills (training), Internationalisation and Innovation and Entrepreneurship (see annexes). In each of these axes there are different projects and activities that allow the development of our main activity, the training of people, without forgetting our commitment to society and the sustainable development of our community, understood not only at a local level, but also at a European level.

For the development of the Cuatrovientos Project, within the framework of our Mission, Vision and Values (see annexes), a management system based on continuous improvement has been introduced since 1988 as a natural working method. Cuatrovientos incorporates the EFQM Excellence model as a reference and evaluation model for its management, working on the adaptation of the model to the Cuatrovientos Project, always taking into account our cooperative model. Cuatrovientos obtained EFQM Excellence 500+ recognition in 2008, renewed in 2011 and 2014. In 2018, it adapted to the Euskalit Advanced Management Model model, obtaining gold recognition for advanced management (see annexes "Cuatrovientos 2018 Management Guide").