Employability of people with disability is still precarious in Europe. National and European skills competitions are a good opportunity for those people to display their talent and skills. Nevertheless, most of those skills competitions are only adapted to valid population. The 5 country partners of this project are dedicated to the inclusion of people with disability within those competitions, in their own country, that is to say in France, Germany, Scotland, Finland and England. In order to standardise the existing systems, they first plan to make an inventory of European systems, via an exchange of good practices, regarding inclusion. Then, they will test their recommendations during the skill competitions that will take place in each of the 5 countries, through the participation of 100 disable people, 20 from each country. They will be trained in transnational teams, before the events, in each welcome country. Last, a reference guide will be written, gathering all the recommendations, to the attention of main actors from the disable or skill compétitions sectors. A total amount of 226 people will take participation in this project. The Candidate country, France, will be in charge of project, administrative and operational coordination. Transational meetings will be in charge of each partnership country, as well as groupe of learners welcome. Those groups will attend national skills competitions, one by country. Training sessions under transnational team form, wil be given by dedidcated and professional trainers. Report will be collegially wriiten. The whole project aims at extending skills competition access to people with disability, developing the dedicated European network, using as a reference for a better inclusion, within skills competition as well as Society. The most important goal is to change people perception.
Employability of people with disability is still precarious in Europe. This is a fact and there has been no major movement since the beginning of our project. Conversely, the global pandemic seems to worsen the situation. People with disabilities are considered as vulnerable people by public authorities and they are the first affected by unemployment. Cap Emploi, public French association in charge to support unemployed persons with disabilities to find a job “has been impacted by the health crisis”. Results from the annual report by CHEOPS, Cap Emploi headend has been released and it reveals -9% for new job placement and -11% for job retention. (www.handicap.fr) We did precise in the project summary that skills contests for people with disabilities at national and European levels is showcasing people with disabilities skills and highlights their professional talent with a view to employement. Many events has been cancelled which was an abrupt stop to reach this goal despite the fact that some innovative virtual actions have emerged. Our objectives through this project: - harmonize skills contests in Europe to promote inclusion - to permit, thanks to competition, professional emancipation - create a strong European network to develop skills competition as an innovative tool toward employment of people with disabilities - to change people's perceptions of handicapped persons. In conjunction with project partners, which are at the same time training centers, skills competition specialized centers or companies from the adapted sector, our project ws supposed to be built as follows: 1/ Overview of the situation, state by state, in term of inclusion and skills contest thanks to regular discussions with other coordinators. 2/ organization of concrete skills competition (thanks to what has been discussed at stage 1) in partners countries with the participation of more than 100 participants/learners with disabilities coming from those 5 countries. 3/ After the end of the project, (1/2 months), drafting a reference guide to serve for people with disabilities for a better inclusion into skills contest. Number of participants original plan: 226 participants. With the health situation, unfortunately, the project did go in that matter: 1/ Session 1 in England (November 2018) : trial session with less contestants than expected. We shared a lot regarding inclusion and skills contest with other coordinators, skills experts, aids, people specialized into the field of disabilities… 2/ Session 2 in Scotland ( May 2019) : session in a wonderful college with a big expertise in organizing skills competition of a really high level. 3/ Session 3 (France) May 2021: virtual session 4/ Session 4 (Finland) June 2021: virtual session 5/ Session 5 (Germany) June2021: virtual session Total number of participants: 123 Participants with special needs: 61 Accompanying people: 62 Despite the pandemic situation, our partners remain really involved. We worked all together to find innovative solution for the success of this project. Of course the timetable has been impacted and the format of our project changed as well. However, our target audience did not change even if the representation was slightly different than expected with a higher participation of people suffering from a mental disability. Following the initial plan, partners countries did a great work to welcome real or virtual skills competition keeping in mind the final objective : harmonize our practices of inclusion into skills contest. Host partners have proposed between to 2 to 5 skills at each session. Craft skills have been selected in priority (cleaning services, cooking, horticulture, landscape gardening…). Then, we can conclude that the approach to disability concerning skills contest or in the general life remains totally singular. Thus, this Erasmus+ project and particularly physical session were helping us to realize that skills contest can bring major benefits for people with disabilities inclusion. There is a famous saying/adage that says that “travels shapes youth” and it is a step towards autonomy of people with disabilities. Challenge, test his abilities and skills, travelling abroad, cultural enrichment are some of the benefits of this project toward a successful professional life.