Intellectual disability affects about 1% of the population on the EU level (over 5 million people). 85% of them have Mild Intellectual Disability (MID). In Slovenia, People with MID (PMID) have hard time finding a job: currently over 8000 intellectually disabled are registered to Employment centre of Slovenia (Employment centre of Slovenia). Most of them are identified as temporarily unemployable in regular working environment and never get jobs. In Italy, adult PMID are addressed to vocational training/internships and work adaptability, under work guidance services and assisted by social/health services. If the work placements fail and the person is evaluated not fit for work, the most frequent result is family life with daily shelter assisted by social/health services. In Spain, unemployment especially affects people with intellectual disabilities: their employment rate in 2014 was 17.4% being the 68 % of young people with disabilities unemployed. On farm activities has already been identified to have positive effects on inclusion of PMID in terms of social care or therapy, but their potential as suitable working environment for persons with disabilities is still highly underrated. This kind of employments are also supported through EU policies and Strategies (Common Agricultural Policy 14-20, CORK Declaration 2.0, EU 2020) as social entrepreneurship represents a new opportunity for farmers with effect on social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas and it delivers innovative, inclusive and sustainable solutions for current and future societal challenges. The general aim of the project FARMID is to promote employment of people with Mild Intellectual Disabilities (MID) on family farms and thus promoting social inclusion as improving economic situation of family farms. The direct target group of this project are farmers, landowners and rural entrepreneurs as well as farmers’ trainers, however indirectly our project aims at improving lives of PMID and their caring families as well. The main objective of the project is to develop new comprehensive training programme and learning materials for farmers, entering in the field of social entrepreneurship on farms, to acquire adequate knowledge, skills and competencies needed for employment and working with people with MID. Project specific objectives are: + To present an overview of national legislation in partners’ countries concerning social entrepreneurship and possible connection to agricultural sector and to identify possibilities how to establish social enterprise on farms for employment of PMID. + To present cases of best practices in the field of social entrepreneurship & agriculture in Europe and partner countries. + To develop & present special knowledge on how to work with, mentor and train employees with special needs. + To develop and implement a training programme for farmers in form of e-learning platform with interactive learning material. The main results of the project will be: +Guidelines for social entepreneurship in rural areas +Developed of case studies (12), gathering best practices in the field of employment of PMID on farms +Developed curriculum: Training for sustainable employment of PMID on farms +Developed contents of the training programme and e-learning platform The training materials (in English, Slovenian, German, Spanish, Italian and French) will be also uploaded to the Open Education Europa (www.openeducationeuropa.eu) portal and to other OER repositories (such as www.oercommons.org) making them available to an even wider audience The FARMID consortium is made of the following partners: BC Naklo (SI): A public educational institution working in these fields: Agriculture, Rural Development, Horticulture, Floristic, Dairying, Nature Preservation, Organic Farming, Stockbreeding and Renewable Energy. They are an important actor within the Slovenian VET system. GRUNT (SI): It’s a non-profit organization with the status of employment centre, founded with the purpose of employing people with disabilities from the countryside who have less opportunities for employment in the local environment. CHANCEB (AT): It’s a non-profit association which main aim is to assist and support old, ill and disabled people so that they can live life to the full. A big part of Chance B is offering services on basis of supported employment: Coaching in schools, Training on the job, Job Assistance, Job Coaching, Consulting-Service. COAG (ES) &CIA (IT): It’s a professional farming organisations OnP (ES): A project management and project evaluation consulting enterprise ELO (BE): The European Landowners Organization is a unique federation of national associations from the EU28, which represents the interests of the landowners, land and forest managers and rural entrepreneurs at the European political level.
Employing hard-to-employ people in agriculture has been a topic of theoretical discussions in Europe, and it has been becoming increasingly significant in recent years. We are aware of the fact that the needs of people with mild intellectual disabilities for employment have been growing, especially in the countryside. Available jobs on farms should be a direct answer to such needs. Specifically, with the shortage of working positions, be it in the countryside or nearby urban areas, many people from this category remain unemployed. Due to specific population structures in the countryside, new positions should be created there. In fact, that might be the only way to ensure permanent and high-quality working positions. Inclusion of people with mild intellectual disabilities (PMID), that affects about 5 million Europeans, on farms, has already been identified to have positive effect on PMID in terms of social care or therapy, but their potential as a suitable working environment for persons with disabilities is still highly underrated. This kind of employments are also encouraged by EU policies and Strategies (Common Agricultural Policy 14-20, CORK Declaration 2.0, EU 2020) as social entrepreneurship represents a new opportunity for farmers with effect on social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas and it delivers innovative, inclusive and sustainable solutions for current and future societal challenges. The general aim of the project FARMID is to promote employment of people with Mild Intellectual Disabilities (MID) on family farms and thus promoting social inclusion as improving economic situation of family farms. This project's direct target group are farmers, landowners and rural entrepreneurs, and farmers' trainers; however, indirectly, our project aims to improve the lives of PMID and their caring families. The project's main objective was to develop a new comprehensive training programme and learning materials for farmers, entering in the field of social entrepreneurship on farms (or simply employment of PMID), to acquire adequate knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for employment and working with people with MID. Project-specific objectives were: + To present an overview of national legislation in partners' countries concerning social entrepreneurship and possible connection to the agricultural sector and identify possibilities of establishing social enterprise on farms for the employment of PMID. + To present best practices in the field of PMID on-farm employment in partner countries. + To develop & present special knowledge on how to work with, mentor and train employees with special needs. + To develop and implement a training programme for farmers in e-learning platform with interactive learning material. The main results of the project are: +Guidelines for sustainable employment of PMID in rural areas +Developed case studies (13), gathering best practices in the field of employment of PMID on farms +Developed curriculum: Training for sustainable employment of PMID on farms +Developed contents of the training programme and e-learning platform +Implemented 25-hours joint short-term staff training for 15 trainers, employees or members of the project consortium +5 multiplier events, involving over 100 main sector stakeholders, such as farmers, farmer trainers, special needs educators, work rehabilitators, policymakers, representative of social service providers etc. +pilot test of the developed platform with 35 participants from 4 countries +promotional video in Slovenian and English, with subtitles to all consortium languages The training materials (in English, Slovenian, German, Spanish, Italian and French) are freely available on www.farmid.bc-naklo.si and Erasmus+ project database making them available to a wide audience. The most important impact, already shown by the project, was the employment of several people with mild intellectual disability on farms or farm-related jobs. Farmers have already expressed interest in PMID employment and are taking steps towards organising their agricultural enterprise direction. After the presentations of case studies, farmers have fewer restraints, related to PMID employment. FARMID training contents have already been used and are planned to be used in the future, partially or as a whole in some of the partners' institutions or in connection to them (for example-with collaboration of CIA Umbria at University of Perugia, Biotehniški center Naklo - on secondary and tertiary level studies etc.) Other partners use gained knowledge in their daily work and further spread the knowledge amongst their members. In relation to this project, some partners decided to further develop the topic in similar projects.