4 million jobs have been lost in Europe due to the Big Economic Crisis started in 2008. People with disabilities have been hit hard, and risks of being marginalized in the labor market raised further. Policies should deliver a response, and one of the under-explored avenues is action for entrepreneurship and self-employment.In the EU only 47% of persons with disabilities are employed compared to 72% of persons without disabilities. At national level employment rates can be so low as the 20% in Croatia. The employment of people with disabilities differs also according to gender, the rate of women with disabilities in OECD countries is only 19.6%.Inclusive entrepreneurship is about a set of attitudes, competences and skills which allow people to turn their dreams into concrete projects or “enterprises”. It is about more than starting a real business. Inclusive entrepreneurship can be applied to self-employment, free lancing, starting or growing micro or small enterprises and to social enterprise using business based approaches driven by social mission. Indeed the personal qualities required for entrepreneurship are essential for success in the knowledge economy. The use of the word 'inclusive' indicates a belief that entrepreneurship is for all and that the personal qualities and conditions required for entrepreneurship and self-employment are not the prerogative of a privileged, highly educated few. Inclusive entrepreneurship involves understanding and then overcoming the barriers faced by people. It is about unleashing the creative potential that people have within them and using this to create a more sustainable future for all.The aim of this project is to promote inclusive entrepreneurship for people with disabilities by developing a methodology based on job shadowing, mentoring and coaching of people with physical disabilities willing to become entrepreneurs or freelances. Mentoring will be carried out on the workplace preferably by entrepreneurs and freelances with a physical disability, coaching by partners’ staff. The desired outcome of the project is a number of people with physical disabilities will start a business or a freelance activity, or cooperating in managerial positions in already established business or consulting companies.This project is submitted by a consortium of 5 organizations (2 from PL, then IT, ES, FR) already working with people with disabilities to help them in returning to labor market through training and guidance services.Thanks to the project, over 9.000 members of target groups will be informed about the project, and 200 people with physical disabilities and 100 trainers and entrepreneurs and freelances will be involved on it. Long term benefits will be the availability of a new methodology and related tools to promote the development of sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in people with physical disabilities, based on mentoring on the workplace and a higher entrepreneurial and freelancing rate among people with physical disability.
The project’s idea came from analysis of the situation in the area of employment and particularly employment of people with disabilities. According to OECD, in 2014 there were about 4 million jobs needed to return to pre-crisis employment levels and persons with disabilities, among other groups, were facing particularly high risks of being marginalized in the labor market. At the EU level, about 47% of persons with disabilities were employed compared to 72% of persons without disabilities. There was a need of response, and one of the under-explored areas was action for entrepreneurship and for self-employment among disadvantaged groups. In view of this situation, the main objective of the project was to promote inclusive entrepreneurship for People with physical disability (PWD) by developing a methodology based on job shadowing, mentoring and coaching of PWD willing to become entrepreneurs or free lancers by entrepreneurs and free lancers. The partnership consisted of 5 organisations being a mixture of entities having two main kind of expertise needed for this project: experience in education and support to entrepreneurship and support to labor insertion of people with disabilities. CWEP and BDC are partners specialized in training on entrepreneurship and support to startups, BDC, Aforisma, FDO and ADPI are experienced in labor insertion of people with disabilities. Each member in the consortium organizes VET courses and in addition, CWEP has experience in project management and IT expertise sufficient for development of online versions of the intellectual outputs. Moreover, except for CWEP, all other partners already cooperated in project ESES Designing the Competence Profile of the European Supported Employment Specialist 526851-LLP-2012-IT-LEONARDO-LMP. The main undertaken activities in the project included work on the main results, meaning that the activities included elaboration of two guides and their on-line versions which were then extensively tested and improved during complex piloting activities (consisting of trainings, job shadowing, mentoring and coaching – all described later in the report). Important activities concerned also LTTA, which included recruitment and training of trainers and PWD in Pisa. Another important part of activities included quality assurance and dissemination of the outcomes in order to assure their exploitation also in other EU countries and other fields. The dissemination included large number of Multiplier Events organised in each country. The results of the project include tangible results which are four main intellectual outputs: Guide How to coach people with disability for developing inclusive entrepreneurship, e-course How to mentor people with disability for developing inclusive entrepreneurship, Inclusive Entrepreneurship Manual. Guide for not able bodied on developing your own business or consultancy and e-course for not able bodied on developing your own business or consultancy, as well as many dissemination materials (website, social channels, leaflets, newsletters, posters, presentations, articles) and working materials including plans and very important intangible results. Those are: improved key competencies of target groups, particularly strengthened development of key competence sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, enhanced access to VET of PWD by providing an efficient guidance service through intellectual outputs, better understanding of work based learning, inclusive training and social inclusion concepts, better educational offer of organisations offering training as well as new networks of cooperation that the partners reached thanks to project’s development. The impact exceeded the expectations. It can be seen in partners’ organizations, their staff and learners, PWD and trainers, operators in the field of adult education. The most important is that all who participated in activities or at least heard about its results, have better awareness about inclusive training, social inclusion and the particular needs of PWD. In addition, the usage of e-courses themselves helps in increasing ICT skills. One of the very concrete and direct proof of project’s impact is example of 3 Polish PWD who due to project activities joined the open labour market – more about it is written in ‘follow up’ section of this report. Project was addressed to trainers of PWD and PWD themselves and it is expected that the benefits in the form of better skills will have long-term character in their lives. However, a significant group benefiting indirectly were VET education centres, VET schools, organisations working with PWD, their associations, NGOs. These organisations will benefit from using the guides and e-courses. As the guides are available for downloading from the website and the e-courses are open to public and they will be maintained for next years, it is expected that it will be used by the organisations for longer time bringing them benefits.