Project

The project DISENEX – Disability Entrepreneurship Expert focuses on at least five of the eight main areas of action defined in the European Disability Strategy 2012-2020: accessibility, participation, equality, employment, education, and training.
The Europe 2020 strategy “recognizes entrepreneurship and self-employment as key for achieving smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth” with the Commission focusing on unemployed and vulnerable people starting businesses.
Self-employment, according to the OECD (2014) research, supports active economic and social involvement, allows for greater flexibility in workload, work hours, and location, and provides more elasticity in managing with handicap than is frequently seen in employment.
Such a business activity can entail taking charge of one’s own life for a social entrepreneur with a disability. By tackling social problems, society can benefit from the unique experiences of people with disabilities.

Based on the DISENEX – Disability Entrepreneurship Expert, the DISENEX+East project strengthens the international exchange of innovative ideas and experiences between civil society actors in Europe, the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia and aims to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities and make (social) entrepreneurship more understandable and accessible. We want to promote social entrepreneurship of people with disabilities in the Eastern Partnership countries and Russia as one of the ways to achieve economic independence and self-realisation by this social group. We want to disseminate the positive best practices of PWD self-employment and to explore modern methods and means of promoting economic participation and strengthening human rights and dignity.

Our goal with this project is to encourage more persons with disabilities to create their own social enterprise. We see this as an opportunity for them to grow economically, creatively, and socially. Society will also benefit from the special experiences of those affected in solving social challenges. We want to show people with disabilities a new way into employment.
Our goal is also to provide those affected with an online guide including knowledge of national legal framework, national and international funding instruments for the establishment and development of a social enterprise. In addition, we want to select the best openly accessible online learning materials in order to make it easier for future social entrepreneurs to develop the necessary skills and competencies. We want to bundle this information, which is essential for starting a social enterprise, on the DISENEx Portal.

Our goals also include supporting political decision-

We motivate:

During the project we make short video films based on the experiences of social entrepreneurs with disabilities and intend to use them as motivation for those who want to start a career.

We inform:

We bundle information on the legislation regarding the establishment and development of social enterprises in the respective partner country. In addition, we create a detailed online catalogue with national and international programs and organizations that support the company founders in their endeavours.

We facilitate training:

The project partners analyse openly accessible learning materials in their country to develop

People with disabilities who are looking for work or self-employment make up the largest target group. They are major actors in the fullest meaning of the term because the videos that will be made are about people who have defied conventional conventions.
With our project, we hope to reach out to individuals and groups working in the subject of inclusion who may be political decision-makers or who may advise them. Authorities, politicians, educators, and

The peculiarity of our approach arises from the key role which successful social entrepreneurs with disabilities play in motivating others. Those who want to break new ground in their professional development are motivated “firsthand”. We consider this type of motivation to be particularly effective, credible and convincing.
Our project is characterized by the fact that the information on starting a social enterprise specifically for people with disabilities, as well as the collection of