A three-year programme that tackles youth unemployment in Southern Italy and promotes social inclusion, creating real opportunities in the energy sector.
The project
Energie con il Sud aims to support 300 NEET young people (Not in Education, Employment or Training), aged between 18 and 29 and living in economically and socially disadvantaged areas. They take part in a free training programme to gain skills in the ecological transition, renewable energy and sustainability, with the goal of helping them into work. The project is based on an innovative and replicable interregional model that brings together technical training, guidance and job placement, with the active contribution of local communities and businesses.
The programme is open to anyone who lives in Sicily, Puglia, Calabria or Campania and wants to work in the energy sector.
How it works
An end-to-end model that brings together selection, technical training and job placement.
Anyone who meets the age and residence requirements can apply: no particular qualifications or experience are needed. After applying online, candidates take an entry skills test and a motivational interview with a personal guidance expert. Everyone who joins the programme is supported by a tutor for its whole duration.
250 hours of specialist technical training in the sectors of the ecological transition, with hands-on workshops at training centres and company sites.
During the course participants obtain the main certifications the job market asks for in the energy sector: PES (Skilled Person), PAV (Instructed Person) and PEI (Qualified Person).
50 hours of personal empowerment and soft skills training, to develop and strengthen transferable skills such as self-efficacy, effective communication, problem solving, leadership and teamwork.
Micro-entrepreneurship sessions offering guidance, training and personal support, to encourage independent work and the creation of micro-businesses or self-employment.
Guidance and one-to-one career coaching, skills assessment, mock interviews, and Job Days and sector events to prepare participants to meet businesses face to face.
What you learn
An innovative and replicable interregional model that brings together technical training, guidance and job placement.
Technical skills to become the energy technicians of the future
Personal empowerment, greater self-awareness and self-efficacy
Soft and entrepreneurial skills to enter the world of work
Where we are
Every year, from October to September, the same four phases: reaching out to candidates, training, the Job Day and job placement. The first year ended on 30 September 2026: the second is now under way.
The phases of the second year
The first year
On 9 June 2026, at Isola, the people who completed the programme met businesses from the energy sector: talks, presentations of the profiles they were looking for and one-to-one interviews.
Press coverage
Fondazione Snam describes its approach to philanthropy, built on trust and long-term paths, and cites Isola as an example: first Restart Italia, then skills-based volunteering, and finally a project built together, Energie con il Sud, which today offers training and jobs in the energy sector to young people not in education or employment.
An account of the first Job Day: twenty young people who completed the course for energy, electrical and heating systems maintenance technicians met twelve companies from the photovoltaic and energy efficiency sector, for more than eighty one-to-one interviews. Among the businesses: Gruppo Altea, ManpowerGroup Italia, Cosedil Energia and Regran Smart Future.
The project as a whole: more than 300 young people to train for green economy jobs across Sicily, Puglia, Campania and Calabria, with 12 courses of 300 hours, traineeship grants and a network of technical partners. Then the first Job Day on 9 June at Isola: twenty graduates, twelve companies, more than 83 interviews.
The Job Day seen through the industrial positioning of the city, across energy, semiconductors, digital technologies and the infrastructure of the ecological transition: an ecosystem growing along the whole value chain, while the challenge remains of including the young people who can’t find work.
The context in which the project was born: according to the TEHA-Ambrosetti 2026 White Paper, the South holds more than half of the country’s installed wind and solar capacity, while in Catania 35.4% of people aged 15 to 29 are outside education and work, among the highest rates in Europe. The piece documents the 83 interviews held on 9 June.
Promoted and supported by
Energie con il Sud is a training and job placement project conceived by Fondazione Snam and supported by Fondazione con il Sud.
Isola Catania 
At a glance
Let’s talk
If you are a business in the energy sector, a training provider, an institution or a local organisation, get in touch: let’s find a way to work together.
Let’s talk
Would you like to collaborate on the programme?
If you are a business in the energy sector, a training provider, an institution or a local organisation, get in touch: let’s find a way to work together.
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