EDGE- ENHANCING DISABLED – PEOPLE GREATNESS AND THEIR EMPLOYABILITY
Project title: „Enhancing Disabled – people Greatness and their Employability“
Program: ERASMUS + K2
Project summary:
According to the EU Disability Strategy 2010 – 2020, about 80 million people living in the EU have a mild to severe disability. About 47% of them are employed compared to 72% of people without disabilities. The obstacles they face, such as gaining access to training or employment, leave them vulnerable to social exclusion. Lower employment and education levels cause that the poverty rate for those with disabilities is 70% higher than the average. Among them, there are currently around 4 million people in the European Union who have Intelectual and relational Disabilities (ID). Their unemployment rate is more than twice as high as for the general population. Despite legislative reforms regarding employment and non-discrimination legislation, and despite financial incentives for employers, the employment rate of people with ID is still low in most of the EU countries. In Lithuania the employment situation for people with disabilities is 30%, worse than in Austria, UK, Portugal.
Project is aimed at ideating and testing innovative approaches to foster the employability of young people with intellectual and relational disability, creating the ground for their inclusion in the labour market and in the society.
Project objectives:
Develop innovative, specific training methodologies for successful employment,
Encourage companies to take more active measures in recruiting people with intellectual disabilities,
Promote business thinking, competencies and opportunities.
Partners:
Consorzio Sir Solidarieta in rete (SIR), ITALIJA
INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD, DIDŽIOJI BRITANIJA
THESSALY UNIVERSITETAS – UTH, GRAIKIJA
FENACERCI, PORTUGALIJA
Die Querdenker, AUSTRIJA
Socialinių inovacijų centras (SIC), LIETUVA
R.Q.SRL, ITALIJA
Melazeta srl, ITALIJA
News
On October 15th, there will be the final conference of the European Project EDGE promoted by the Consorzio Sir (Erasmus Plus Programme) in collaboration with institutions and organizations from different countries: UK, Portugal, Greece, Austria and Lithuania. In this occasion we will share the results and the outcomes of the different areas of the project.
EDGE allowed to test innovative approaches to promote the inclusion of young people with intellectual and relational disabilities in the labor market, through innovative and effective training methodologies for job placement, the development of an entrepreneurial mindset, as well as the improvement of skills for self-employment.
In fact, training courses on mindfulness, training and support for job placement and self-employment have been carried out and an interactive game designed to "train" young people to develop the skills needed for work has been created. Companies were also involved, supporting them in creating more inclusive working environments through innovative tools such as the "Inclusive Companies Handbook" and the possibility of obtaining the Edge brand as a certification of Inclusive Company.
2021-08-04
We invite everyone to try out the intellectual products created by the EDGE project The EDGE project aims to develop and test innovative approaches to promoting employment opportunities for young people with intellectual disabilities by creating a framework for their inclusion in the labor market and society. EDGE HOME is not only a platform, but also a place where not only young people and their families can meet, but also instructors and mentors looking for ways to share solutions to similar problems. Without waiting for anything, click this link and try it out
👉 https://www.edge-erasmus.eu/courses/lt/...
2021 april newsletter
Distance learning courses
The Center for Social Innovation is implementing the Erasmus + KA202 project "EDGE-Enhancing Disabled-People Greatness and their Employability" Project objectives: to improve employment opportunities for young people with intellectual disabilities using innovative specific methodologies; Encourage companies to take more active measures in recruiting people with intellectual disabilities; Promote business thinking, competencies and opportunities. We invite you to learn remotely by visiting the website https://www.edge-erasmus.eu/lt/category/outcomes-lt/ Most tutorials and excitement are suitable for remote use via the EDGE HOME platform. Please register for free on the platform: click on "EDGE HOME", indicating who you are - user, instructor, "mentor", "company", etc. Once registered, go to ACTIONS, select the product you want, and follow the instructions to learn more about the content you are interested in. Good luck
EDGE Erasmus+ Project - Newsletter November 2020
The EDGE Erasmus+ project partners would like to welcome you to reading our fourth newsletter. The last time we put together our newsletter back in March 2020 we were in a time of limbo, not knowing what the short term future was to bring. Having adapted and changed the way we work the EDGE project has been able to continue successfully supporting our target group!
What have we been up to?
Moving online
Having changed our ways of working from face-to-face to online we as partners have been able to deliver training safely. More recently some partners, in countries where rates of Covid-19 are reducing, have been able to deliver socially distant and safe training face-to-face.
That was the case of the partner Die Querdenker (Austria), which since the end of May have been able to carry out the practically oriented trainings on site again. It was a great challenge for all involved to teach the young people with intellectual impairment the strict safety regulations and then to observe them together in everyday work and training. This has been a good success and has given the young people important skills for the future
Also, the project partners have delivered mindfulness training with a specific focus on the current times and ways in which individuals could build resilience and confidence. Further to this partners are currently delivering their training for neurodiverse individuals who endeavour to explore entrepreneurship. Training for trainers, mentors and coaches is also being conducted in partner countries. Partner Inova Consultancy (UK) have been delivering these interactive sessions via Zoom getting everyone engaged and participating in discussion in order to aid development of individuals and supporting mentors and coaches.
Similarly moving to Microsoft Teams, UTH organised four online training sessions with the participation of trainers and business mentors and facilitators-trainers from UTH. Between the different sessions, participants had enough time to study and deepen into the several manuals. During the sessions UTH staff presented the project and its objectives and participants were navigated towards exploring it further. The feedback received was extremely satisfactory and participants expressed their willingness to use Mindfulness and Job- based Programmes in their daily work. UTH has started on preparatory work for the upcoming delivery of the EDGE Entrepreneurial Program. Last July Consorzio SiR remotely trained the first "Business Mentors", to help those neurodiverse individuals to develop their path of entrepreneurship. The business mentors from these sessions will put the skills and exercise acquired into practice.
eCampus decided to share and spread the EDGE message and contents by organising a webinar in which Prof. Fiorella Vinci will illustrate the Handbook that was written to students, colleagues and stakeholders. This session is taking place on the 16th December 2020.
Conference
In September VšĮ Socialinių inovacijų centras organised a full day conference with roundtable discussions related to innovative training of youth with ID. All participants were professionals, dealing with disability - trainers and educators from local education institutions. The conference was held in order to make them aware of EDGE potentiality and create the ground for EDGE circulation, as well as collect relevant contributions to better tailor the next steps, according to needs and specific challenges. Participants also had the opportunity to explore the EDGE tools.
What is available!
With the support of partners the following materials are available now: a Short Guide for trainers on how to organise the EDGE training sessions, Manuals/Teaching materials for both trainers and young people with IDs and 4 additional in-depth webinars. The whole toolkit is accessible online at www.edge-erasmus.eu/courses.
Finally, everything is almost ready to start testing the EDGE Game, an online game developed by Melazeta (Italy) capable of simulating work contexts by supporting young people with IDs in developing transversal skills useful for their job placement. At the same point is the “EDGE Handbook for Inclusive Companies”, a guide developed by the eCampus University (Italy) to provide companies with guidelines on how to implement corporate Diversity Management strategies.
For more information, you can follow the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/EDGEErasmusProject) or visit the project website (www.edge-erasmus.eu).
Thank you for reading! We wish you, your family and friends the safest of times!
2020 07 09
July 9, 2020 Employees of the Social Innovation Center of the Public Institution carried out a regular group session of the project “Choose, Achieve, Keep” at the Pakruojis Association of the Disabled, during which they presented not only Lithuanian but also international projects, INCLUDING EDGE: · ERASMUS + KA202 project “Enhancing Disabled - People Greatness and their Employability” (2018-1-IT01-KA202-006770).
Partner Meeting of the ERASMUS + K2 Project ,,Enhancing Disabled people-Greatness and Their Employability” (EDGE) in Milan
Partner Meeting of the ERASMUS + K2 Project ,,Enhancing Disabled people-Greatness and Their Employability” (EDGE) in Milan
Socialiniu Inovaciju Centras (SIC) is a partner in the ERASMUS + K2 ,,Enhancing Disabled people-Greatness and Their Employability” (EDGE) project for the employment of young people with intellectual disabilities. The project aims to develop and test innovative methodologies and tools for training young people and creating inclusive environments in companies.
The project is coordinated by the Milan SIR Consortium, Italy. The project involves Socialiniu Inovaciju Centras (SIC), Lithuania, eCampus University – Italy, Fenacerci – Portugal, University of Thessaly – Greece, Die Querdenker – Austria, Inova Ltd – United Kingdom. All partners work together to develop new work and social inclusion tools for young people with disabilities, raising young people’s awareness, self-employment and workplace learning.
December 4-6, 2019 a working meeting of the project participants took place at Cascina Bellaria headquarters in Milan, Italy. During the meeting, the partners welcomed the success of the project and presented examples of good practice in the employment of people with disabilities. The restaurant “First pancake” in Vilnius, founded by Dutch businessman T. van Wijk, was very impressed with the participants of the meeting. The idea behind the restaurant is simple – people who visit there understand that working with a disability is normal. An example of this is raising people’s awareness of the issue.
During the meeting partners discussed about implementing actions aimed at entering the labour market – preparing young people with intellectual disabilities to experiment with new recruitment strategies; promoting the ways in which young people become creators of their future.
In February 2020, the project participants will meet again in Italy. The meeting will showcase an innovative product – a computer game that will promote young people’s entrepreneurship education, as well as self-employment skills and opportunities.
On February 3-5 ERASMUS + K2 ,,Enhancing Disabled people-Greatness and TheirEmployability”(EDGE) project for the employment of young people with intellectual disabilities took place in Milan at the SIR Consortiums Cosocial.
The purpose ofthe meeting was to create various scenes for a special game. This game is a new tool for young people with disabilities for work and social inclusion, raising young people’s awareness, self-entrepreneurship, and challenging work environments on work-based learning. EDGE game will be available online from June, 2020. It will be tested by a group of 65 young people from Italy and by groups of 35 young people from each partner country.
First meeting
On 5-6 of November, 2018, the kick-off meeting of EDGE project was held in Milan. The meeting was held in a wonderful country house where an organization engaged in the education and employment of people with disabilities has been operating. At the meeting, project partners were able to monitor the excellent example of integration of people with disabilities: in farmstead disabled people not only live, but also a lot of farm work is done by themselves.
Participants of the meeting (Consorzio Sir Solidarieta in rete (SIR) (Italy)) and partners from England INOVA CONSULTANCY LTD, Greek UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY – UTH, Portugal FENACERCI, Austria Die Querdenker, Lithuanian Social Innovation Center (SIC) and Italian R.Q.SRL and Melazeta srl presented the activities and experiences of each of the organizations represented, promoting the integration process of the disabled and providing comprehensive assistance to social groups that lack social or work skills.
After the presentation of the partners, the project’s objectives, expected results and project management plan were reviewed in general by the coordinating organisation (Consorzio Sir Solidarieta in rete (SIR) (Italy)). Each of the responsible organizations introduced the expected intellectual outputs. At the end of the first day of the meeting a quality plan for the implementation of the project was presented and discussed.
On the second day of the meeting the dissemination plan of the project activities and the role of each of the partner organizations in disseminating information about the activities being carried out were discussed. Also discussed were the calendar of project activities, the potential dates for meetings and the required reporting, the ways and means of internal communication. The meeting ended with a summary of the next upcoming steps.
