Inclusion and Empowerment
Welcome to our Empowerment and Inclusion projects page. Here we spotlight initiatives dedicated to fostering growth and opportunities for young people, unemployed individuals, marginalized groups, and women. Explore how our projects empower these communities through education, training, and tailored support, helping them build brighter, more secure futures. Dive into our projects of change and learn how we’re making a difference.
The key objective of the FEMPOWER – Female Empowerment: Leaders of the Future project was to develop and reinforce female leadership skills and empower young women within the innovative work-based learning environment of the Practice Enterprise. The secondary objective was to implement elements into the programme to address gender stereotype expectations and raise awareness of gender-based discrimination in the labour market. The consortium cooperated to develop a Female Leadership and Empowerment Mini-Course Programme through which young participants, especially female trainees, are more likely to emerge as leaders and understand the realities of the labour market and better adapt to new trends in the recruitment process.
The Female Leadership and Empowerment Mini-Course programme raises awareness of the challenges young women face when entering the 21st-century workplace. The FEMPOWER project provides a unique training experience for young women by including real-world role-models who might otherwise not be available to them and by developing innovative models for business and leadership skills acquisition to tackle the discrepancy between male and female youth employability.
The Project Consortium created and designed the FEMPOWER Project Website where you can find all details on the project partners, progress, the mini-course programme, opportunities for participation and insights to download.
Consortium:
PEN Worldwide (DE – Lead)
Fundació Inform (ES)
ACTIF (AT)
Vilniaus Kolegija (LT)
Tryangle (BE)
Project Website:
www.fempower.penworldwide.org
RUSESL was a major funding project financed by the European Commission Executive Agency for Reducing Upper Secondary Early School Leaving using the Practice Enterprise concept.
Reducing the average European rate of early school leavers to less than 10% by 2020 was one of the education headline targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy. In 2011, the Education Council adopted a recommendation on policies to reduce early school leaving (ESL), focusing on prevention, intervention and compensation.
The main goal of our project was to prevent ESL in the later years of secondary school – a target group often overlooked when discussing ESL, as the legal definition of early school leaving refers to non-participation in school before reaching the age of 16 years or before completing 3 years’ post-primary education, whichever is later. Our project continued the successes of our previous project to tackle ESL at the earliest stages of secondary school, by evolving and modifying the schools’ practices and innovative methodologies of learning and teaching designed to reduce ESL of upper secondary students through the approaches of the Practice Enterprise methodology.
The project studied the situation of ESL in the respective countries and Europe, designed and created a Practice Enterprise model that contributes to the development of social, ICT and entrepreneurial skills in students with a high risk of becoming early school leavers. The outcomes of the project have been applied on a European scale and shared on an international scale.
Through the participation of groups managing Practice Enterprises and schools, the project defined a framework for using the Practice Enterprise methodology for reducing upper secondary ESL through curriculum design, module development, pedagogical team roles, a tutoring system and an evaluation and assessment system.
Contact us to get more information on using Practice Enterprise to reduce ESL at your school. We’ll be happy to share the project results with you.
Consortium:
PEN Worldwide (DE – Lead)
Fundació Inform (ES)
Instituto Don Calabria (IT)
BUCT (BG)
LIBA (LT)
Escola Tècnico Professional Xavier (ES)
ITES Roberto Valturio (IT)
SU Asen Zlatarov (BG)
Vocational Education and Training Centre Zirmunai (LT)
The Practice Enterprise connects education with the business world, making learning inclusive and engaging for our trainees. It helps trainees learn at their own speed, boosts their academic skills, and encourages a lifelong love for learning. Through online Practice Enterprise events, trainees can connect, enhancing their motivation and creativity.
The JOINUS – Alliance for Digital Practice Enterprise Events project improves access to training and skills. It offers a safe online environment where low-skilled trainees can gain work-related skills through online events. Participants can practice tasks repeatedly without the fear of real-world consequences, enhancing their ability to work remotely and learn new methods.
The project created a resilient event model that allows organizations from less advantaged areas to maintain their international presence. This initiative created a sustainable online event experience that also boosts digital skills for all participants.
Consortium:
International Business College (DK – Lead)
PEN Worldwide (DE)
Fundacio Privada Inform (ES)
Centro Studi Opera Don Calabria (IT)
REEP (FR)
Lietuvos Imitaciniu Bendroviu Asociacija LIBA (LT)
Website:
www.joinus.penworldwide.org
ENGAGE offers a flexible, innovative, and inclusive Practice Enterprise Traineeship that is adaptable to the future needs and requirements of the labour market. The challenges in education in the past years (ca. 2020-2024) have made the need for accessible internships even more pressing and some groups of students find it increasingly hard to find good internship placements.
Practice Enterprise traineeships improve access to internships for VET students from disadvantaged backgrounds as educational institutions can prioritize marginalized and disadvantaged students. The workspace includes job contact and networking resources as well as a traineeship portfolio of their work.
The ENGAGE consortium looked at the opportunities and challenges of setting up a traineeship directly within VET as an adaptive and innovative model of the Practice Enterprise to ensure positive effects on trainees’ job potential. This included analyzing and benchmarking solutions for an engaging, inclusive Practice Enterprise traineeship that reproduces a realistic real-world working environment.
Consortium:
PEN Worldwide (DE – Lead)
Fundacio Privada Inform (ES)
Centro Studi Opera Don Calabria (IT)
Stichting Praktijkleren PenNed (NL)
Website:
www.engage.penworldwide.org
