🇪🇸 Seniors Españoles para la Cooperación Técnica
🔗 secot.org

SECOT stands for “Seniors Españoles para la Cooperación Técnica” (“Spanish Seniors for Technical Cooperation”). It is a nonprofit organisation founded in 1989 and declared of public interest in 1995. It was promoted by the Circulo de Empresarios and was later joined by the Chambers of Commerce and Social Action Businesses.

The main objectives of the Association are to advise and train people, small businesses and nonprofit entities in all areas of business management.

It has more than 20 delegations and offices spread over the Spanish territory. It has more than 1,300 members, of which more than 1,100 are senior volunteers, all of them are retired or early retired business executives and professionals of a variety of disciplines offering their business management knowledge and experience mainly to self employers, microenterprises and nonprofit organizations, through counselling and mentoring, face-to-face and online, by seminaries and lectures, with the aim to maintain and create employment.

In recent years a number of SECOT’s seniors have also collaborated as lecturers, trainers and tutors of students, with several educational institutions in projects concerned with the preparation of young people for employment.

Principal courses of action

[Consulting] Technical business consulting is implemented for entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofit organisations.

[Training] SECOT gives education and training to its senior volunteers. It also provides education and training to people with disabilities or limited intelligence to increase their employment skills.

[Projects] Individual projects are carried out specifically tailored to the specific contracts taken on with public and private sectors. These projects include mentoring activities.

[Thinking forum] It is about ideas related to the development and encouragement of the spirit of entrepreneurship and the prolongation of  careers, aging in an active manner and  the promotion of intergenerational relations.

Youth unemployment in Spain is the second highest in the European Union. However it is coming down at a higher rate than in other countries, because of actions being taken to fuel the economy and employment. SECOT, as many nonprofit organisations, is collaborating with educational institutions and enterprises to promote employment and/or entrepreneurship (for example, Rafael del Pino Foundation, ESADE, etc.), as well as with companies through their Foundations (e.g. Repsol, Mutua Madrileña, Bertelsmann Foundation, etc.).

SECOT School for Entrepreneurs has been launched in February 2012. It promotes education for entrepreneurs who wish to start a business project and need basic management knowledge for their business. 749 hours in 2017 were given in several courses, sponsored by the City of Madrid through its program “Madrid Emprende”, the Regional Government, Comunidad de Madrid and the Rafael del Pino Foundation.