DISEMEX – Disability Employment Expert Erasmus Project

Project Title

DISEMEX – Disability Employment Expert

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Disabilities – special needs; Social dialogue

Project Summary

One of the declared aims of the European Union’s policy, corresponding to Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, is to improve social and economic situation of persons with disabilities, i.e. improving the situation of their exclusion from the labour market and providing their right to the self-determined participation in social life, reflected in the concept of inclusion. According to the EASPD Employment Declaration of December 2014, people with disabilities are structurally disadvantaged in the labour market because of different barriers. Their labour market participation is still significantly lower than that of persons without disabilities and this situation has not significantly improved over the past 15 years. The persistent underemployment of persons with disabilities needs to be addressed with immediate action to end the situation of exclusion from the labour market.

The goal of the project was the exchange of good practice and benchmarking of best practice strategies aimed at facilitating the successful integration of people with disabilities into the first (open) labour market and thus promoting inclusion. Of particular interest were organisations and methods that reduce structural barriers without having a charitable claim to help. The main focus of DISEMEX -project laid primarily on empowerment projects and not transfer.

The members of the partnership were 9 organizations from 8 countries of the EU (Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, the UK) and Turkey with various background, form and specialization, such as: 1- Governmental office, 1- continuous education & training institution, 2- social enterprises and 5 adult education providers, but all with main or partial interests and activities in the area of social inclusion of PWD, gathered together in order to benchmark the current status of professional inclusion in their countries. Within the project the consortium looked at the employment models for people with different disabilities in their respective countries, examining and selecting the best practice cases in order to find possible innovative models for successful full professional integration of the affected individuals into the regular labour market and to promote their transferability.

During the project the consortium members have not only managed to become a new perception of possible job pathways for people with disabilities on the open labour market in different countries, but also to fill the gaps on the additional possibilities within supported and sheltered work, depending on the nationally/regionally/locally provided support and infrastructure opportunities. As part of the transnational project meetings, the organisations and institutions corresponding to the project goals were visited and workshops with project participants and relevant stakeholders in the respective partner country were held.

After extensive exchange internally and with external experts, the consortium was able to develop an evaluation methodology on the basis of which best practice examples in the participating countries were recorded and analysed. Some of the examples became video depictions of the cases, either as personal stories or presentations of the companies with particularly successful inclusion practices. The findings of the project have been and are continuously promoted within each partner’s national and transnational networks. Some of them will serve as a basis for aftermath activities of the partners. A major international dissemination outside the partners operating regions took place within “DISEMEX+East” project co-financed by the German Federal Foreign Office under the programme of development of a cooperation with the civil society in the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia. The preliminary results of DISEMEX were presented at the main event of the mentioned project DISEMEX+East “Together for inclusion”- an international conference during the Rehacare International Trade Show and Congress in September 2019. More than 60 representatives of civil organisations of people with disabilities and experts from 14 countries participating in the DISEMEX ( partner countries) and DISEMEX + East (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and the Ukraine) projects took part, as did experts in the field of inclusion from the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia, inclusion agencies and leading German companies.

The project results should assist the public administrations and organisations involved in the facilitating social inclusion of people with disabilities through employment in different countries to discover and understand the new opportunities, based on technological and social innovations.

More information can be found at : www.disemex.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 118460 Eur

Project Coordinator

Internationale Akademie für Management und Technologie (INTAMT) e.V. & Country: DE

Project Partners

• ENGELSIZ TOPLUM OLUSTURMA DERNEGI
• OZARA STORITVENO IN INVALIDSKO PODJETJE DOO
• CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE PER LA PROMOZIONE DELL’EDUCAZIONE E LO SVILUPPO ASSOCIAZIONE
• 36.6 Competence Centre (Scotland)
• IZMIR VALILIGI
• BALGARSKA AGENTSIYA ZA RAZVITIE
• 36,6 Competence Centre