Centrum Aktywności Lokalnej/ Centre of Local Activities (CAL) – małopolskie voivodeship, dąbrowskie and gorlickie counties. Project website: http://ww

In times of the economic and financial crisis in the eurozone one stumbles across various articles, debates or/and discussions devoted to the increase in the unemployment rate and the threat of seemingly an inevitable stagnation and recession in the economic activity. It is a crisis in the eurozone but for us, Poles it is a crisis that poses a serious threat for us especially when following the latest news and statistics from the unemployment offices. Unemployment is a serious issue nowadays. For those who hold a relevant university degree and skills the problem of finding a job is not such a big thing comparing to those who do not possess skills required in a labour market or to those who do have skills but are disabled to a certain degree and thus have difficulties competing in a demanding labour market. Our Project “Centre of Local Activity” is being implemented under the Measure 7.2 “Overcoming the issue of social exclusion and strengthening the social economy”, Sub-Measure 7.2.1 “Social and professional activation/mobilization of people who are at risk at social exclusion” within the Operational Programme Human Capital under the European Social Fund. The problem(s) that need to be addressed and solved immediately is to equip the project beneficiaries (60 disabled persons; both women (36) and men (25) being unemployed or profesionally inactive and living in the area of the dąbrowskie (30) and gorlickie (30) counties) with skills that will increase their chances to find a suitable job position. Apart from the skills, we see the urgent need to help the project beneficiaries boost their self-consciousness through organizing a workshop devoted to the importance of image; the workshop consisting of two modules: clothing and physical appearance, and professional hairstyle. Within our project we have proposed and designed the following activities:

•  “Interregional Integration for the Project Participant” – training in the development of social skills, psychological workshop
• Legal assistance
• Psychological assistance
• Computer training
• Individual trainings depending on the participants’ needs
• 6 months of apprenticeship
• Job & career assistance, including professional activation workshops, individual career assistance etc.
• To put it in a nutshell, the main problems that need to be solved within our project are as follows: 
• a huge number of unemployed disabled people do not have necessary skills that are fundamental for them to become competitive in the current job market
• and more importantly, they are not self-conscious about themselves and lack soft skills (positive thinking, motivation, savoir vivre etc.)

Our project  addresses the above mentioned problems in order to successfully help our project beneficiaries change their personal attitude and equip them with necessary skills so that they can become competitive in the job market. Why are we interested in adding the transnational element to our existing project? Since our project is already under implementation, the content itself cannot be amended significantly. However, due to the fact that we now have an opportunity to include a transnational partner into the project, we would like to do it due to several reasons:

• we would like to receive a constructive feedback from the partner regarding our proposed and implemented courses, training etc. in comparison with the ideas, suggestions and advice developed in similar projects by the partner. In this way we could exchange our knowledge and see how the partner addresses such issues in their country (import of solutions from the transnational partner)
• we do not live in monochromic society any more. We share a view that the majority of project proposals in any country need to be confronted with ideas and solutions from another one to have “out-of-box” way of thinking and diverse ideas even if they lead to long discussions and/or arguments; it can only foster creativity and innovation
• a cooperation with a transnational partner within that particular project can be a good start for a long-term collaboration in respect to future project proposals.