A project from PO ISE, Portugal's Operational Programme of Social Inclusion and Employment, offers young people the chance to take up a professional internship, giving them valuable work experience to help them into employment.

For Marine Biology graduate Hugo João, the project was just what he needed to steer him into his ideal career: fish farming. But meeting the owners of an aquaculture company who were looking for an intern was pure luck!

“When I decided to change my career path and enrolled on the Local Skipper course (recreational boating), they were also on the same course,” explains Hugo. “They were about to make an application to the programme but without a candidate. But when they found out that I was doing a degree in marine biology and when they got to know me, they thought I was the ideal candidate.”