The digital evolution does not stop at Social Firms in Europe that are committed to the qualification, employment, occupational rehabilitation, and integration of persons whose health prevents them from taking on or continuing a job and who are therefore in need of special help. Like other enterprises Social Firms must apply technological developments specifically to the occupational promotion and training of persons with disabilities or health issues. They have to adapt to the digital evolution to improve the employability of the target groups and increase their chances on the labour market. In other words, also underprivileged persons must be promoted by qualified offers on the labour market, must be made fit for the digital era, and hence must be protected from the danger of digital exclusion. The strategic partnership centres on the professional exchange of information on digital training issues in the context of Social Firms and on the familiarisation with good working practices in the participating European countries. In order to reach this aim, a cross border dialogue is to be set up and specific relationships are to be initiated throughout the cooperation. The partnership pursues the objective of communicating new, define findings and ideas to the involved organisations on how to deal with the opportunities provided and the challenges posed by digitisation in their Social Firms. In this respect, the emphasis is placed on two aspects: a) the opportunities that digitisation can provide specifically for training work with the underprivileged on the labour market, with respect to both vocational and personnel qualifications (e.g. by means of technical aids, standardisation of work routines, social learning, game based learning); b) the risks that digitisation may entail in each of the partner countries for employees and specifically for the underprivileged on the labour market (e.g. privatisation of labour, displacement of low grade jobs, etc.). Six organisations from five member states (Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Greece, Belgium) will take part in the partnership. The project is realized as a series of steps including not only the kickoff and the final event, but also four additional workshops of three days each taking place at the participating partner organisations. Each partner sends three to four experts and/or executives to the workshops. Furthermore workshops in social firms will be organized with members of the target groups on digital learning and vocational training. The partnership will produce a good-practice-reader and a project website.
“I really appreciated the very good communication between the partners, the common understanding of the project work and active involvement in all the activities. I didn't expect that the project work will continue so well in this pandemic period, but the partners did a very good work even online and managed to share a lot of interesting best practices models in Europe and experiences”, says Alina Birsan from SFE CEFEC Social firms Europe. The focus of the project work was on professional exchange, which unfortunately had to be reduced in terms of personal partner meetings due to the Corona pandemic. However, a total of 36 mobilities could be carried out within the framework of the strategic partnership, in which six organisations from five EU member states (DE, RO, LT, GR, BE) participated. The face-to-face meetings took place in Cologne (Germany), Sfantu Gheorge (Romania) and Kaunas (Lithuania). Unfortunately, we were unable to hold the planned transnational meetings in Athens (Greece), Suceava (Romania) and Turnhout/ Brussels (Belgium) due to the pandemic. In order to continue the European cooperation, we have therefore held a total of eleven monthly Zoom meetings since May 2020. Participants in the transnational meetings and Zoom meetings were pedagogical professionals who are active in vocational education and counselling work with disadvantaged groups of people on site and have extensive experience in this field. The central theme of our three 2.5-day transnational partner meetings and the monthly meetings with Zoom was the use of digital media in social enterprises. Experts from science and practice from different EU countries were invited and interesting projects were visited on site or presented digitally. Our goal was to create a European knowledge base through joint project work. In addition to the transnational exchange, each local partner developed a smaller digital project to test digital media in practice with professionals or disadvantaged people. The digital offers were integrated into the context of vocational training work with disadvantaged groups and achieved very positive results and contributed to digitalisation in the participating social enterprises. For example, more than 50 professionals from the partners took part in our training courses on the use of digital media. Furthermore, a large number of people (education experts, responsible persons from politics and administration, stakeholders, etc.) came into contact with our project or were informed about our project activities. In addition to the joint trainings, we jointly developed an extensive reader with good examples of the use of digital media in social enterprises in English, which was posted on our project website. The transnational partners have agreed to continue and expand the use of digital media in their social enterprises in vocational guidance and education work with disadvantaged people beyond the end of the project. Furthermore, it was agreed to continue working together at the European level and to jointly launch a new project if possible in 2022, which will again be thematically located in the context of vocational education and training. Further information is available on our project website: www.digi4se.eu. The contents of two transnational partner meetings are also documented in detail there in the form of e-books as well as the Zoom meetings and other documents.