INCREASING EMPLOYABILITY OF DISABLED PEOPLE

1. INCREASING EMPLOYABILITY OF DISABLED PEOPLE LLP-LdV-TOI-2007-TR-039

2. From AnDE to INEMDIP

3. Contractor Sakarya University PARTNERS Information Systems Management Institute Transferred Project Contractor University of National and World Economy Partner Turkey Disabled’s Education and Solidarity Foundation Partner Small and Medium Sized Industry Development Organization Partner Adapazarı Chamber of Commerce and Industry Partner

4. Aims • According to European Policies to Promote Employment and Social Inclusion (In Guideline 7; promotion of the integration of and combating the discrimination against people at a disadvantage in the labour market) Member States will foster the integration of people facing particular difficulties on the labour market, including people with disabilities, by developing their employability, increasing job opportunities and preventing all forms of discrimination against them. Specifically for people with disabilities, Member States will aim to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction in the unemployment gaps, according to any national targets and definitions.

5. This project precisely designed for this aim. There are very high unemployment rate amongst disabled people. Social discrimination against them is noticeable. Their employment rate and job opportunities are particularly low in private sector. In Turkey, according to Statistics Institute of Turkey of 2002, over 12 % of the populations (8.5 million) have certain disabilities. 79 % of the disabled people are not included in the labour force. Over 36 % of these people are illiterate, well over the general rate of Turkey. 52.45 % are not included in any social security system. Those are within this system, only 45 % have their own security system whereas the rest is dependent on someone else. According to an official survey, 61 % of disabled people expect financial support from different organization, which shows their will of joining the labour market. These figures show how severe is the situation in Turkey for disabled people. The major aim of this project is provide education for the entrepreneurs, managers and professionals, and Government bodies to employ disabled people.

6. Type of Transfer When analyzing the current situation, particularly managers and owners in private sector are not willing to employ disabled people. Providing certain education for them, their understanding about the situation in Turkey and in the EU member countries will increase. It is hoped that this will increase the employability of the disabled people by lifting the social and personal biases against them. These biases are so concrete and noticeable taken the social structure of Turkey into account. A specific cultural approach needs to be implemented when this project is transferred to the Turkish context. By doing this: • One must analyze and understand the cultural background of the employers and disabled people seeking jobs. • One must be certain about the means and the ways that the specified education have to be implemented.

7. Target Groups Target groups concerned by our proposal is direct and partly directed: The direct target group is employers and managers which can be divided conventionally into two subgroups: • Existing entrepreneurs and managers in different sectors of national economy (in non-formal and non-official study environment); • Audience and students of different professional study programmes (in formal study environment – colleges and universities). Direct users of methodical materials and recommendations: • Teaching staff, trainers of entrepreneurs, consultants; • People who work out and develop study programmes and standards of professions; • Specialists of state and municipal institutions; • Mass mediums etc.

8. European Dimension • Generally speaking, by carrying out this project within several European countries will provide the opportunity of developing a general perspective towards the employability of disabled people. • The project showed that there are many possibilities to involve people with disabilities in the labour market and gave each partner the possibility to gain knowledge of the situation with employment of disabled people in partner countries and mechanism of stimulation of entrepreneurs to employ them. The partners examined the situation on the national and international levels, compare and share knowledge and experience. • The countries have to learn more from each other, just practically proving with good examples that good will of the government, cooperation of different organisations, and rational use of finances can promote to overcome different prejudices against people with disabilities and involve them in the labour market giving them the same rights and responsibilities as for everyone in the country. • The project gave an opportunity to look through the other projects, documents, action plans on translational and national level (EQUAL, European Strategies on social inclusion, National Action Plans …) • The project will be proved that people with different backgrounds may form a good team to create Learning and methodological materials.

9. Valorisation • The strategy and structure of project result’ dissemination to the target sector and potential users will be carried out by each partner of project in its country. Each partner will separately obtain and analyse information and work out the final results of projects, then they will be adopted to conditions and situations in each partner country and translated in to its national language and then each partner organisation disseminates the project results in its country. • In addition, our partner organizations particularly KOSGEB and ATSO (Adapazarı Chamber of Trade and Industry) have a large portfolio of member companies all over Turkey. Only the members of KOSGEB count over 22.000 companies in Turkey. ATSO have more than 600 member companies operating in Sakarya. Hence, the project has a great opportunity in terms of dissemination in Turkey. The same method of dissemination will apply in other partnering countries.