LEADership and ABILITY for Inclusive Labour Transformation and Innovation
EU Programme: Social Innovation+ (ESF+) – Call ESF-SI-2025-DEP-01 “Implementing the Disability Employment Package – innovative approaches to improve labour market outcomes for persons with disabilities”
Reference: ESF-SI-2025-DEP-01-0038
Start date: TBC
End date: TBC

LEADABILITY empowers adults with physical, motor or sensory disabilities to become active agents of change in the labour market by building their technical and entrepreneurial capacities.

Implemented in Italy (Sicily and Sardinia), Bulgaria and Cyprus, the project transfers and scales a proven social innovation model that equips persons with disabilities with practical skills in EU project design, fundraising and social entrepreneurship. Through accessible training, Individual Learning and Access Plans (ILAPs), mentoring and incubation, participants set up new disability-led associations and initiatives that deliver inclusive training and advisory services to employers.

The results are translated into policy briefs and programme integration plans co-created with Public Employment Services and local authorities. LEADABILITY contributes to Measure 6 of the Disability Employment Package: quality jobs in sheltered employment and pathways to the open labour market.

Objectives

  • SO1 – Equip adults with physical/motor or sensory disabilities with practice-oriented skills in EU project design, fundraising and social entrepreneurship, through tailored training and structured mentoring, creating pathways to quality employment and supported self-employment.
  • SO2 – Establish and support disability-led associations and position them as local providers of inclusive training and advisory services for employers, fostering change in recruitment, accommodation and retention practices.
  • SO3 – Produce evidence-based policy recommendations and support the integration of inclusive employment tools into public programmes, through engagement with competent authorities and PES.

Activities

  • Coordination and project management.
  • Empowerment and capacity building: outreach and accessibility needs assessment (ILAPs), co-design of an inclusive curriculum, Training of Trainers in Cagliari and 40-hour blended national training in each partner country.
  • Mentoring and incubation: job shadowing in partner organisations, strategic plans and project pipelines, individual mentoring and legal support, incubation of new disability-led organisations.
  • Social impact and policy uptake: impact evaluation, social value and business case (SROI-lite), policy briefs and programme integration plans.
  • Communication and dissemination: “Stories of Inclusion” storytelling series, local dissemination events, Social Innovation Match platform and capitalisation and advocacy plan.

Results

  • 20 young adults with physical, motor or sensory disabilities trained in EU project design, entrepreneurship and leadership (5 per local context).
  • 9 educators and trainers equipped with inclusive teaching and accessibility competences; 8 mentors engaged in mentoring, job shadowing and incubation.
  • 4 new disability-led organisations or social enterprises established.
  • Inclusive Curriculum, Trainer’s Toolkit for Inclusive Delivery and national Inclusive Enterprise Creation Toolkits.
  • Social Value & Business Case Brief, Policy Brief and Programme Integration Plans for PES and local authorities.
  • 8 local dissemination events (2 per country) and the “Stories of Inclusion” multimedia series.

Co-experts

  • A digital accessibility expert (WCAG 2.1) and assistive technologies specialist;
  • Italian Sign Language (LIS) interpreters and specialists in captioning and audio description;
  • A gender equality expert for the Gender Equality Assurance Plan (GEAP);
  • An SROI expert for the business case;
  • National legal advisors for registering the new organisations in Bulgaria and Cyprus.

Partnership

I.E.R.F.O.P. Onlus (Italy)

PRISM Impresa Sociale s.r.l. (Italy)

Università degli Studi di Palermo (Italy)

RESET LTD (Cyprus)

CuBuFo (Bulgaria)

Keywords

Disability employment; social innovation; inclusive entrepreneurship; disability-led organisations; mentoring and incubation; sheltered employment; open labour market; policy uptake.

Website

TBC

Tags

Adults, Entrepreneurship, Inclusion, Vulnerabilities.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for them.