There are an estimated 80 million people with disabilities in Europe. They are often excluded from the labour market and are at risk of poverty and suffer from social exclusion. Many are the barriers: environmental, professional and ­ethical.

The Foundation for the Promotion of Social inclusion in Malta (Fopsim) is involved in an Erasmus Plus project entitled ‘Integration of People with Disabilities through Learning’ that kicked off with a meeting of the partners in Reus, Spain. Besides the Maltese foundation the other partner organisations are from Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Latvia and Turkey.

The project seeks to address the challenges identified in the European disability strategy 2010-2020, which aims to encourage inclusiveness of disabled people and raise their employability through professional and vocational education.

The project aims to tackle these obstacles through a holistic approach. Its key actions are to exchange good practices in the area of social labour inclusion and to develop a training course to increase employability of young people with disabilities.

To achieve these objectives, the project aims, first of all, to boost the raise of awareness of the subject. To this end the partners intend drawing up recommendations for NGOs on how to provide a smoother transition of disabled people from education to working place.

PR campaigns, open-doors days and round tables will also be organised and a website set up to disseminate the project findings to disabled people, their organisations, educational establishment and companies.

Besides enabling all the partners to meet for the first time, the meeting was also used to present demonstration websites and establish the next steps to be taken.

For more information about the project e-mail Maria Limongelli at maria@fopsim.eu or visit the Fopsim website.