Light the Candle of Your Bright Future (CANDLE) Erasmus Project

Project Title

Light the Candle of Your Bright Future (CANDLE)

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

The CANDLE partnership is a joint effort of 7 organisations (3 NGOs, 1 school, 1 public body and 2 SMEs) from 6 European countries from 3 main regions of Europe (North, South-Eastern, South). The project’s overall aim was to improve employment prospects of young people with intellectual disabilities.
The concrete objectives fulfilled after the end of the project are :
– to improve social entrepreneurial skills of 35 young people with intellectual disabilities;
– to raise capacity of 14 professionals in delivering social entrepreneurship education social entrepreneurship training for young people with intellectual disabilities;
– to support establishment of 7 training social enterprises of young people with intellectual disabilities.
The Candle project compiled a social entrepreneurship training programme for young people with mild, moderate and severe intellectual disabilities on the basis of good practices in the partner organisations and countries. Within the programme young people with the support of youth workers developed ideas for social enterprises in the field of candle-making.They were engaged in real “training” enterprises, carried out pilot production, marketing and selling activities within the learning process.
Some of the products , produced in the local enterprices would be market in a e-shop, integrated within the project website.
The project’s duration is 15 months and the main activities carried out succesfully were : youth social entrepreneurship training implementation; youth workers international trainings in the focus of the project; website”Special candle” and e-shop for social enterprises development, management, communication and impact evaluation.
The main lasting impact could be summarized as follows:
– Young people with intellectual disabilities developed a new perspective of their future in the world of work, motivation for creating own opportunities for making a living. Moreover, the project’s impact for them is related to: improved social entrepreneurship mindset; communication competences; improved learning attainments; openness to cooperating with their peers; increased sense of initiative; improved self-esteem and self-belief. The long-term impact for young people with intellectual disabilities is reduced unemployment.
– Youth workers were enabled and would continue to deliver high quality training in social entrepreneurship for young people with intellectual disabilities.
– Project partners integrated the know-how exchanged into their daily activities. The project would allow for positioning of partner organisations as a reliable European cooperative in the field of social entrepreneurship trainings for young people with special needs. Additional impact levels are linked to establishing more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment inside the partner organizations, open to synergies with organisations active in different fields or in other socio-economic sectors; improved management competences and internationalisation strategies; reinforced cooperation with partners from other countries, other fields of education, training and youth and/or other socio-economic sectors; increased quality in the preparation, implementation, monitoring and follow-up of EU/international projects;
– Other stakeholders (parents, employers, social partners, policy makers, etc.) increased quality of learning opportunities for young people with special needs. The Candle activities and evidence base collected with give further visibility to the issue on introducing effective policy measures for ensuring real employment prospects to young people with intellectual disabilities. Additional impacts are related to increased synergies and links between formal and non-formal education institutions; increased number of good practices exchanged
National association of resource teachers was very proud that the CANDLE project recieved a special award for good,inovative practice by the Bulgarian National Agency, during the anual traditional Valorization Conference. Candle project was given a sign of quality and together with 12 more organisations, presented the project and its results. NART had a special booth, where youth workers and young people with intellectual disabilities showed in detail candle making process to the guessts. Together with Reginal centre for inlusive education, Sofia, NART established a long-term functioning social enterprice, where kids with special need go regularly and attend trainings for candle making and non-formal training fro creating websites and e_shops for selling candles.Some of the other partners also have or plan long-term development of the social enterprices.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 68977,63 Eur

Project Coordinator

NATSIONALNA ASOTSIATSIA NA RESURSNITE UCHITELI & Country: BG

Project Partners

• EUROPOS SOCIALINIS VERSLUMO UGDYMO IR INOVATYVIU STUDIJU INSTITUTAS
• Igdir Il Milli Egitim Mudurlugu
• YOUNET
• Ataturk OzelEgitim Mesleki Egitim Merkezi
• OFENSIVA TINERILOR ASOCIATIA
• Sportfit Shortbreak Care Ltd