Young people with disabilities are much more likely to be unemployed and in poor economic conditions than their peers without disabilities. Since it is very hard for them to find an employment, a valid alternative would be to turn in self-employment and entrepreneurship. However, existing entrepreneurship training and support programmes usually do not take into consideration their needs which are specific and different from those of young people without disability. STARTUP project aims to empower young people with disabilities to start their own enterprise and support them to overcome all the obstacles that exist both practical and psychological. In the same time, the project aims to empower youth workers to support them in this process. In order to achieve these objectives, the project is going to organise three capacity building courses with many activities, discussions and a mentoring program in order to support the youth workers in the specific field. The project will also build bridges between youth workers and successful entrepreneurs, who are going to share their experiences, best practices, and their guidance, with the aim this project to be the stepping stone for a future where they can drive their own lives. Furthermore, the project is going to develop an online portal related with young entrepreneurs with disabilities with the aim to create a reference point for the whole sector. It is also going to develop an e-learning course and open educational resources in order to reach young people that because of their disability are not going to be able to participate in the presential activities. Young entrepreneurs with disabilities and innovative ideas are going to be supported through mentoring in an individual basis or in a group. E-youth work is going also to be piloted in order to support these activities.The project is going to be implemented by a consortium comprised of 5 organisations, representing 4 countries from 3 continents (Greece, UK, Japan, Chile) that face similar issues related with the entrepreneurship of young people with disabilities. The organisations are experts in the promotion of entrepreneurship (generally) and the entrepreneurship of young people with disabilities (more specifically) , online and youth work.It is expected that at least 60 youth workers and 100 young people with disabilities will be involved in the project activities. At the end of the project, it is expected that more young people with disabilities will be involved in entrepreneurial activities which will be more successful because of the provision of more adequate support.
The success of a project depends on the people who take part in it. Its success lies in the commitment of the partners. The project’s energy cannot be captured only through reports and indeed very successful numbers but also through the eyes and words of the STARTUP people. We recommend watching the video about the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJpNXlX-T30Its main aim was the training of people with disabilities and their support youth workers to set up their own enterprise. This target was achieved by the following means:1. The organization of three capacity-building mobilities in the UK (https://startup-project.eu/croydon/), Malaysia (https://startup-project.eu/meeting-malaysia/) and Chile (https://startup-project.eu/meeting-in-santiago/) 2. The development of training material related to the support of people with disabilities to set up their own enterprises: a) by identifying the needs of each country through initial research. You can see it here: UK (https://startup-project.eu/uk-research/), Greece (https://startup-project.eu/gr-research/ ), Chile (https://startup-project.eu/research-chile/), Malaysia (https://startup-project.eu/malaysia-research/) b) by organizing an e- learning course consisted of four main modules targeted to support youth workers working with people with disabilities. You can get an overview of the e-learning course in the project website here (https://startup-project.eu/e-learning/ ) and you can access the e-learning course here (https://actionelearning.eu/login/). The evaluator can access the platform by using the following credentials (Username: startupelearn Password: startup123) c) by organizing mentorship for people with disabilities by the support youth workers who were before trained by the STARTUP e-learning course. You can see more than 20 case studies here: UK (https://startup-project.eu/united-kingdom-case-studies/), Malaysia (https://startup-project.eu/malaysia-case-studies/), Greece (https://startup-project.eu/greece-case-studies/), Chile(https://startup-project.eu/chile-case-studies/ ). 3. By creating an online portal where people can find existing training material or upload theirs related to people with disabilities and entrepreneurship. See here (https://academy.akep.eu/?msg=not-logged-in). What is more, people can find existing best practises of people that have set their own businesses here (https://startup-project.eu/online-portal/).The impact of STARTUP not only lies in the number of people trained and inspired throughout it but also in the quality of the material it has created. The sustainability of the training material will be available and after the completion of the project. It also lies in the communication of STARTUP. The Website (https://startup-project.eu/) has become a point of reference for people with disabilities that want to set up their own enterprise. It contains all the training material that was designed during the period of the project. The Fb (https://www.facebook.com/startup.int.project) attracted more than 967 followers worldwide. An added value for the project, not initially foreseen, is the translation of the complete training material in the Spanish language, a fact that allows the access to the training material of STARTUP project to million people around the world.To sum up, we firmly believe that the STARTUP project not only fulfilled its initial targets at the highest level, despite all the obstacles set by the covid 19 crisis but also overpassed them, by creating tools that will last and can provide capacity-building to young people with disabilities and their support youth workers in the following years. Thus, we believe that the STARTUP project deserves to be awarded a best practice project.