Fundacja FUNDUSZ WSPÓŁPRACY

The project activities are addressed to local communities from rural areas, where a large percentage of inhabitants is at risk of marginalisation and exclusion from the labour market. The initiative will be carried out in the Biłgoraj district and Lublin rural district (the Lublin province), as well as in the Ełk district and Nidzica district (the Warmia-Masuria province). They are among the poorest regions in Poland and in the whole European Union.

The detailed project objective is to develop and test in practice a model strategy to mobilise local communities to create social enterprises. The Partnership is planning to start up seven enterprises of this type, one in the Biłgoraj district, one in the Nidzica district, two in the Ełk district, and three in the Lublin district. They will take advantage of the local potential and settings. They will manufacture handicrafts, provide educational and job training services (the Ełk district), tourism services (the Nidzica district), personal services and municipal services, as well as training and educational services (the Lublin district).

The Partnership will provide training, individual consultancy, apprenticeships and on-the-job training at non-governmental organisations and enterprises for 530 people in total. Each of the final beneficiaries will utilise at least one of the listed forms of support. 230 people will also receive comprehensive integration and mobilisation support. This means that people from groups at risk will be prepared to return to the labour market owing to the multilateral and multifaceted support provided by psychologists, job counsellors and social workers within the framework of Centrum Wsparcia Przedsiębiorczości Społecznej (the Social Entrepreneurship Support Centre), as well as within the training sessions and apprenticeships organised by Powiatowy Ośrodek Przysposobienia Zawodowego dla Młodzieży (the District Vocational Centre for the Youth) and by Gminne Centrum Aktywizacji Społecznej i Zawodowej (the Commune Centre for Social and Vocational Rehabilitation).

The final beneficiaries of the project will include unemployed people, with particular regard to the long-term unemployed (especially youth, people over 50 years of age, unemployed women and the disabled), as well as people living in poverty, homeless and alcohol abusers. The project activities are designed to help them to find their place on the labour market through enabling them to take a job. The social groups selected for the project have difficulties with adapting to the labour market due to employers' psychological resistance, poorer work performance, low professional skills, limited job aptitude and high risk of giving up the job or negligence. Other barriers include their passive attitude, lack of financial means and a fear of starting a business. 760 participants are planned to participate in the project, and at least half of them will be women. 50 of the beneficiaries will also be disabled to a moderate extent. The final output to be delivered by the Partnership - "A social enterprise rooted in the local community: key legal, organisational and institutional solutions" - will consist of three basic documents. The first of them is a recommendation for a legal definition of social enterprises, the principles of their establishment and operations, and a recommendation for a legal and financial framework which would enable them to perform successfully and to develop. This document will focus on several legal and institutional issues: the social enterprise and the public sector, social enterprises within the tax system, the privileged position of social enterprises and the equality of market opportunities, institutions for the support and development of social enterprises. The document will contain the analysis of existing solutions to these issues and recommendations for changes and new regulations.

The second component of the project output is a proposal for a method of organising, implementing and supporting social enterprises - a Strategy for Partner Intervention. Its concept consists of a top-down stimulation of those local communities which are neglected in terms of economics. The Strategy aims to establish supralocal Partnerships (e.g. district or regional Partnerships) consisting of public authorities, NGOs, and private businesses acting for and with local communities, inspiring their motivation. The document will also include a presentation of a method for working with local communities, known as the local social capacity building method. It serves the establishment of relations between the community, the enterprise, and the supralocal partnership.

• Social enterprise deeply rooted in the local community: key legal, organisational and institutional solutions