Introduction
According to the 2017 edition of the OECD report “Missing Entrepreneurs”, people in disadvantaged groups in the EU are still less likely to be involved in business creation and self-employment activities than the mainstream population. The report emphasizes “the need to continue to encourage and support entrepreneurship” and recommends “supporting these groups with entrepreneurship training, coaching and mentoring”. There is a lack of provision in existence to support disadvantaged individuals into entrepreneurship and self-employment.
The Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Adult Education project “ACCESS ENTERPRISE” seeks to develop strategies across member states in order to support marginalised groups to access business and self-employment opportunities, and help adult educators and business support practitioners develop new and existing skills and participate fully in society.
The project ACCESS ENTERPRISE is coordinated by Merseyside Expanding Horizons (United Kingdom - UK) with project partners from Spain (Formacion para el disarrollo e insercion, sociedad limitada), Portugal (Aproximar-cooperativa de solidariedade social), Lithuania (SIF -Socialiniu Inovaciju Fondas), Greece (Athens Lifelong Learning institute eastiki mi kerdoskopiki etairia) and Romania (Centru Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente Timisoara Asociatia).
The project‘s results are the following three intellectual outputs (IO):
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IO1 ‘State of Art’ review on Entrepreneurship support for marginalised groups |
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IO2 Training Modules and Resources for Business Advisers / Coaches working with people from marginalised groups |
IO3 Impact and Assessment, Positional Analysis and Sustainability Report |
The
target groups that will benefit from the project are:
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Professionals: Trainers and Enterprise coaches, supporting the above groups |
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People who are disadvantaged based on gender, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion |
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Individuals who are excluded from the labour-market |
The results of IO1 the ‘State of Art’ review on Entrepreneurship support for marginalised groups showed the need for tailored and person centered training and support packaged for people from marginalised groups.
The partnership developed the framework for this package by collecting information through IO1 - State of Art’ review on Entrepreneurship support for marginalised groups: the best practice examples, the economic growth sectors in each partner country, best practice business planning tools and resources, findings from the focus groups with people from marginalised groups and consultation with existing entrepreneurs and generate the conclusions contained in the last part of IO1.
The package – IO2 - Training Modules and Resources for Business Advisers / Coaches working with people from marginalised groups was created using a co-production model, where professionals and people from marginalised groups’ views are treated equally in the design, development, piloting, and evaluations of the intellectual outputs.
IO2 includes the five developed modules that were tested during piloting according to the plan with clear goals, time frames, challenges, and feedback. These modules are designed for Business Advisors/ Business Coaches as well as Entrepreneurs but with a different approach: for Business Advisors/ Business Coaches it looks more as a training and session plan, for Entrepreneurs, it is more about the journey of the entrepreneur and one to one sessions.
At the end of the development of training modules and resources, the partnership have developed, tested, and evaluated a scheme of work which up skills, empower, and enables existed Business Advisers and Coaches to provide an effective enterprise support package to people from different marginalised groups.
This document presents the first of five modules contained within IO2: the Module 1 - a Course Handbook detailing how to set up entrepreneur education for different marginalised groups, different training methods and strategies which are effective in working with people from marginalised groups and case studies from pilots of entrepreneur education taken from both best practice examples contained within IO1 and those generated by the partnership as part of the piloting activity.
The Course Handbook is designed for Business Advisors/Coaches and for Entrepreneurs to be able to implement Access Enterprise - to understand that the main outcome about the project and Access Enterprise methodology is not to create a business, but to aware people from vulnerable groups about being entrepreneurs in their own life and pathways they can choose for a better life.