Inclusive Bubbles: Youngtrepreneurship in action

Background Our partnership combines the efforts of 5 organizations from 5 countries, representing distinct regions in Europe (Mediterranean, Central, North and South Eastern Europe) with the aim to train youth workers and enable them to identify adequately the training needs of young people with intellectual disabilities and provide entrepreneurship and self-awareness training to them. Some of the partners have already successfully collaborated in other projects. All the participating organizations work with young people in the fields of social inclusion and training of youth workers. The needs, we addressed, are related to the difficulties in implementing effective training and work inclusion plans for young people with intellectual disabilities for a solid and satisfactory employment. Thus, we intended to develop and test new paths for the development of social and entrepreneurial skills. Objectives The consortium aimed at delivering trainings for youth workers and for young people with intellectual disabilities in the fields of social entrepreneurship and development of life skills. The partners worked together to reach several specific objectives: improvement of social entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and motivation to participate on the labour market of 25 young people with intellectual disabilities in 5 countries (5 per country); raise capacity of 10 professionals (2 per country) by delivering 2 joint staff trainings; local trainings of 50 youth workers (10 per country); support the establishment of 5 training social enterprise modules for young people with intellectual disabilities (1 per country). All objectives were planed and fulfilled together with sharing good practices and adapting the main training methodologies to the local needs and the personal needs and learning capacity of the beneficiaries - young people with intellectual disabilities. Implementation The partners - National Association of Resource Teachers, Bulgaria - coordinator; Backslash, Spain; Igdir il Milli Egitim Mudurlugu,Turkey; Regionalne Centrum Wolontariatu, Poland; Kulturno Izobrazevalno Drustvo PiNa, Slovenia implemented successfully two 5-day international joint staff trainings for youth workers in Turkey and in Bulgaria; 10 local trainings for youth workers and young people with intellectual disabilities; delivery of learning activities for young people with intellectual disabilities within soap-making social enterprise modules; creation of a social entrepreneurship training program for young people with intellectual disabilities on the basis of good practices in the partner organizations and countries; creation of a website and a training e-shop for hand-made soap; creation of a handbook for soap preparation; two transnational project meetings - online and in person; management, quality management and dissemination activities. Achievements The project impact on the young people with intellectual disabilities is related to the delivery of basic social enterprise skills; communication competences; improved learning achievements; openness to cooperating with peers; increased sense of initiative. The youth workers are able to deliver high quality training about personal skills for independent life and social entrepreneurship for young people with intellectual disabilities by providing them with the necessary information and appropriate methods for understanding the opportunities of independent living, taking the initiative in their own hands and becoming responsible for their future. The project consortium planned and implemented youth workers trainings on national and on international level, and developed training materials and presentations; developed information materials (including 2 brochures) and a webpage of the project. Partners published different articles and educational materials on the Face Book page of the project. Instagram profile was also created. 2 desk research reports, a soap-making handbook and a program for entrepreneurial training can be found on the webpage of the project.