Preparing individuals with intellectual disabilities in the labor market through – the INCLUJOBS ERASMUS+ KA220 – ADU project
The 27th and the 28th of September 2023, in the city of Rethymno on the island of Crete, took place a transnational meeting of the Project INCLUJOBS “Holistic learning for the employment of people with intellectual disabilities”.
The INCLUJOBS is a co – financed by the European Commission. This project aims to fight against the labor gap that exists in people with intellectual disabilities. The main aim is to promote employability through some training material for special educators, the business sector, and people with intellectual disabilities.
In the INCLUJOBS ERASMUS+ KA220-ADU – Cooperation partnerships in adult education participate 5 expert organizations, in the fields of working inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, as well as in promoting e-inclusion using innovative methods such as new technologies and apps.
The partners are:
•Asociación de Investigación de la Industria del Juguete (AIJU) Spain
•Vitale Technologie Comunicazione – (VITECO) Italy
•Austrian Association of Inclusive Society (AIS) Austria
•Association of parents and friends of people with autism in Rethymno Greece
•Social Enterprise PUZZLE Greece
The participating organizations work in the fields of the project to create an INCLUJOBS Manual for Special Educators, consisted of physical and digital material. This manual also focuses on understanding both the needs of people with intellectual disabilities in the workplace and the needs of hiring companies.
The second part is the creation of an INCLUJOBS Handbook for Inclusive Job Employers Awareness to provide the company managers with the information needed about employing a person with intellectual disabilities.
The third part is the INCLUJOBS Toolkit for job search for people with intellectual disabilities: This Toolkit will include information related to job search, as well as content related to the main tasks to be performed in jobs in the Tourism, Manufacturing at information technology (IT).
Finally, the INCLUJOBS online platform will include a set of educational games for people with intellectual disabilities. A specific networking section will also be included to promote the employability of people with intellectual disabilities through the design of a hub and facilitate networking between future employees and employers.
The agenda of the meeting in Rethymno city, was including the following:
An overall project review in the management of the project from the project leader organization AIJU. Raul Esteban presented the evaluation of the accomplishment with the remaining tasks and activities of the project for all the participants.
Andreas Papp from Puzzle, Greece presented the ideas for the creation of the toolkit for jobs search for people with intellectual disabilities. The toolkit aims to provide information, in an accessible way and adapted to specific needs of the people with disabilities.
Finally, Gavriel Tsountanis from the Rethymno Association of parents and friends of people with autism updated the progress on the Dissemination Plan of the project, suggesting some ideas on the following tasks of the participants.
The main beneficiary of INCLUJOB’s activities for people with intellectual disabilities is to acquire greater knowledge about how to obtain employment, in addition to the conceptual tools and skills necessary to be able to start a job. The impact to the society through the INCLUJOBS project is to create initiatives to the companies in having inclusive work environments for people with intellectual disabilities.
