This is a journey that started at the end of 2019, few months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, we have been working with MoreThanAJob to continuously foster the dialogue and collaboration among social economy actors and public administrations to promote the social and labour inclusion of vulnerable groups in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Greece and Italy.
In the aftermath of the pandemic and of the related restrictive measures, it has become increasingly clear the role played by social economy actors in reaching the most vulnerable groups and in supporting the public welfare to counteracting their marginalization. Cooperation and sharing of resources and means is pivotal to build a more structured dialogue between the actors involved in the development of services and initiatives for the inclusion of all citizens.
Through the different activities realised, we have been working to improve these cooperation mechanisms and to create new spaces of dialogue for the identification of the main challenges and opportunities to enhance territorial welfare services.
Discover our journey
We started by exploring good practices and initiatives based on the collaboration among social economy actors and public administrations to identify the main weaknesses and strengths. Through it, we developed the MoreThanAJob framework with social schemes and priorities to be addressed, ensuring the delivery of better services and the capacity to reach a higher number of citizens.
In each partner countries, training activities addressed to and meetings with both actors were realised in order to raise their awareness and to increase their capacities in cooperating and creating new opportunities for the social and economic growth of their territories.
The journey was completed by the local initiatives sub-granted by MoreThanAJob that allowed an even stronger presence in the territory, strengthening the impact of the project.
MoreThanAJob in numbers
Data showing how we supported local growth and social inclusion in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Greece and Italy:
- 18 professionals working in the field of social and labour inclusion increased their capacities and awareness on how to support local actions in improving the welfare services’ offer.
- +700 social economy actors participated to local training activities on how to support territorial welfare services.
- +150 representatives of public administrations were trained on how to collaborate more effectively with social economy actors.
- 10 agreements signed between social economy actors and public administrations for the development of initiatives supporting social and labour inclusion of vulnerable groups.
- 1 multilingual online portal as centre for an integrated offer of territorial services and as a tool to foster synergies among local actors for social services and initiatives’ development.
- 10 local initiatives sub-granted benefitting almost 3.000 people, in particular vulnerable ones, by enhancing their social and labour inclusion.
We discussed this and more during the final conference in Beirut with the participation of a wide range of actors, such as representatives of ministries, local stakeholders, social and solidarity economy actors, and public administration representatives.
The conference took place on the 27th of February, during the final partner meeting of the project held from the 27th of February to the 2nd of March 2023.
About the project
MoreThanAJob – Reinforcing social and solidarity economy for the unemployed, uneducated and refugees is a project funded by the European Union under ENI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme. The project aims at enhancing the development of cooperation mechanisms between the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) actors and the public administration to improve the social services for vulnerable groups in order to increase their opportunities of social and labour inclusion.
Partners
- An-Najah National University – ANNU (Palestine, coordinator)
- Nablus Chamber of Commerce and Industry – NCCI (Palestine)
- Mutah University – MUTAH (Jordan)
- Business Consultancy and Training Services – BCTS (Lebanon)
- CESIE (Italy)
- Eurotraining Educational Organization SA – EUROTRAINING (Greece)
For further information
Read more about MoreThanAJob, see the project website and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
Contact Giulia Tarantino: giulia.tarantino@cesie.org.
