The activities financed under this grant scheme are aimed to contribute to enhancing the access to employment and improved employability as well as to increase participation of people at social risk and persons experiencing social exclusion into the labour market.
The activities are focus on the unemployed people, employees who need further qualification and education in line with labour market needs and on the most vulnerable disadvantaged men and women, including members of the less represented ethnic community (especially Roma).
The global objective of this grant scheme is to foster employment and active inclusion of people in the weakest position on the labour market.
The specific objectives of this grant scheme are:
- to increase the activation and involvement of persons at risk of social exclusion in the labour market by mobilizing and/or improving their skills, education, qualification as well as development of community based social services facilitating their full integration into the society and in particular their access to the labour market.
- to facilitate integration of individuals from Roma ethnic community, affected by social exclusion and discrimination into the labour market and the society in general, especially focusing on economic migrants, persons without documents, Roma living in substandard housing conditions and Roma women, through enhancement of their employment potentials and implementing social innovations.
This grant scheme envisages actions under two thematic priorities which correspond to the measure 3.1 of the OPHRD Priority Axis 3 “Social Inclusion – Equal opportunities and reinforcing social inclusion”:
Thematic priority 1: Fostering social inclusion of the disadvantaged persons
This thematic priority contributes to the specific objective (1) and encompasses developing and implementing specific employment or social services and innovative approaches tailored to the needs of individuals in the weakest position in the labour market. While on an employment path, these individuals need more support than others in terms of broad range of activities and individualized services to help them develop opportunities for employment. The access to the labour market and integration to the society demands some special measures and “pathways approach” before people at social risk are able fully to take use of the general labour market services. The activities form a coherent pathway towards employment. This is done through individual action plan (a commitment of the client and activity provider like the organisation providing social services) and organized follow up of the plan. Namely, people at social risk and persons experiencing social exclusion encounter many difficulties when entering the labour market due to various social, psychological and economic reasons. Various social and professional services of rehabilitation are aimed to increase motivation of these persons, form the necessary social skills, promote participation in the society and improve the skills needed to start using general labour market services and active labour market measures are needed.
Thematic priority 2: Inclusion of Roma into the labour market
This thematic priority contributes to the specific objective (2) and encompasses actions to address multiple exclusion factors of individuals from Roma ethnic minority community for their sustainable integration in the labour market. Roma people experiencing social exclusion encounter many difficulties when entering the labour market due to various social, psychological and economic reasons. Roma women tend to be discriminated against for more reasons and in more spheres of life than men. Not all unemployed Roma are in position to register within the Employment Service Agency due to the problems with lack of documents, lack of knowledge, etc. Moreover, many Roma work in precarious and undeclared jobs (selling goods at green markets, house cleaning, gathering plastic for recycling, manual workers etc.), as well as jobs that are not linked with social contributions, all of which leads to a lack of decent living standard. Attention is given to the initiatives that help to change discrimination stereotypes in the society that constitute one of the obstacles for these persons to integrate into the labour market. The thematic priority deals with specific measures that promote equal opportunities in the fields of social protection, employment and education. Addressing the conditions of Roma requires comprehensive approach tackling social, cultural and economic factors that influence their daily lives – barriers of gender and traditions, discrimination, poverty and limited access to education and employment.
The following twelve (12) projects are implemented: