Upskilling Pathways for Employability Erasmus Project

Project Title

Upskilling Pathways for Employability

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The European Commission outlined the main achievement of the EU in reaching the Europe 2020 objective 75% of the 20-64 year-olds to be employed. Many efforts have been made by Member States to alleviate the negative impact from the NEETs phenomenon by opportunities offered through the Youth Guarantee Initiative. Currently 14.2% of the EU population aged 15-29 corresponds to NEETs. Furthermore, governments launched national programmes for continuous trainings of long-term unemployed citizens to raise their employability. The current momentum is opening up a new challenge for the European labour market, calling for new measures to ensure quick and effective integration of disadvantaged groups (28% of the EU population) that are an integral part of the societies and to avoid structural poverty and social exclusion.
The partnership will address the described trends and challenges in the transnational perspective of 5 EU countries to be represented in partnership: Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Romania and Poland. The aim is by exploring the diverse national experiences in supporting disadvantaged groups to introduce an innovative UPthEM training programme to empower employability and employment prospects of disadvantaged people. We would like to focus on these target groups and engage them in a successful career path either as employed or as self-employed entrepreneurs.
The main objectives are to:
1. Elaborate UPthEm training programme for disadvantaged learners.
2. Shot 40 videos with successful motivating stories of disadvantaged people.
3. Train 25 (5 per country) adult educators to implement the programme.
4. Engage 50 adults (10 per country) from disadvantaged groups to explore the benefits of the programme through online dissemination activities and 5 multiplier events.
The project will target adult educators and adults with disadvantaged backgrounds with special attention to the unemployed ones. Taking into consideration the broad national contexts and specifics attached to term “disadvantaged backgrounds” we agreed to adopt a common working definition, which refers to this group of citizens as being in a disadvantage position compared to their peers in staying or accessing the labour market facing one or more obstacles. Based on the experience of each partner, we agreed to target adults facing: sociocultural difficulties – related to experiencing discrimination because of gender, ethnicity or religion, economic – related to unemployment and poverty and geographical – citizens living in small towns or rural areas, where the employment opportunities are limited and the rate of long-term unemployment is higher in comparison with other regions, disabled people. These groups are often excluded from the opportunities for life-long trainings at central level.
UPthEM project will develop an innovative training programme, called Upskilling Pathways for Employability (UPthEM Program). The programme will combine entrepreneurship and employability training curricula with a role-play simulation, during which learners will be engaged in the process of looking for employability options or starting their own business. The innovation lies in the inclusion in the UPthEM Program of two modules whose topics are still underestimated – Green Entrepreneurship and sustainable development and Social Empowerment. The integration of environmental and employment policies presents a great opportunity for growth and achieving the Europe 2020 employment targets. “Green Jobs” are quickly transforming traditional roles and creating new professions and countries must act to support green initiatives to support economies. The Social Empowerment module will deal with personal development and civic participation by focusing on the collective empowerment of participants simulating the model of a social impact incubator.
The overall impact of the programme is related to extending and developing the competences of adult educators and fostering entrepreneurial mindset and confidence for success among disadvantaged learners. Further it aims to develop key knowledge and skills so that the educators can offer high quality learning opportunities and the learners to be more competitive at the labor market. Special efforts will be made to boost up the sustainability of the project’s results and promote the exchange of good practices in years after its end.
We envisage that lessons learnt from UPthEM project implementation will offer fruitful evidence base for national and European policy makers, designing policy measure to alleviate the negative effects of social exclusion and ensure sustainable solutions to ensuring employment for adults with disadvantaged backgrounds. The findings from UPthEM project implementation can serve as policy guidelines and contribute to development of national employment programmes and add momentum to initiatives led by European networks as European Social Policy Network and European Association for the Education of Adults.

Project Website

https://upthem.erasmus.site/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 150900 Eur

Project Coordinator

SDRUDZENIE ZNAM I MOGA & Country: BG

Project Partners

• GROWTH COOP S.COOP.AND
• STOWARZYSZENIE CENTRUM WSPIERANIA EDUKACJI I PRZEDSIEBIORCZOSCI
• FORMACION PARA EL DESARROLLO E INSERCION, SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
• Asociatia de Dezvoltare Economico-Sociala
• Association of Danube River Municipalities “Danube”
• STIMMULI FOR SOCIAL CHANGE