Project Summary

The Erasmus + project “Coming Out of Unemployment” is related to raising capacity of youth workers with the aim of acquiring knowledge and skills, and also raising their professional competence in working on the economic empowerment of the LGBT population through the development of social entrepreneurship.

The Erasmus + project “Coming Out of Unemployment” is related to raising capacity of youth workers with the aim of acquiring knowledge and skills, and also raising their professional competence in working on the economic empowerment of the LGBT population through the development of social entrepreneurship.

As an organization dealing with human rights of LGBT persons, but also one that helps other marginalized populations, we realized that populations which are not economically empowered cannot adequately nor in the long run advocate for the practicing of their human rights.

The project participants encompass six organizations from Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Spain, which want to share experiences and improve the economic position of LGBT persons and in this way secure the fight for their human rights and sustainability of LGBT NGOs in the long run. Members of these organizations will, through active work, acquire knowledge and skills for practical work and further transferring of knowledge in the field of developing social entrepreneurship, raising capacity and empowering young LGBT persons to become entrepreneurs.

Following this project, creating a network of social enterprises of LGBT persons from our countries is planned so they would have better chances for success, mutual cooperation and support in the future.

The total of 36 youth workers, will participate in the nine-days-training in Šabac, Serbia, where Association Rainbow as the project leader, has the first social enterprise in the region employing LGBTpersons,victims of family violence, and supports them through economic empowerment in leaving the circle of violence. The concept of training will be developed out of the study visit in Spain and personal years-long experience of Association Rainbowas the project leader in this field.

Participants will also learn how to transfer their knowledge as trainers, because they will learn how to become trainers from experienced trainers and thus will be able to disseminate the acquired knowledge and skills further in their countries. This will lead to the domino effect where youth workers continue to transfer their knowledge and skills to others through their own trainings after this project is completed, whereas in doing so we increase the duration for which the aims of this project will be achieved.

One of the results of the project will be “The Manual on the Development of Social Entrepreneurship” which will provide guidelines for future trainers and help them realize their trainings, thus reaching medium-term and long-term aims of this project.

The concluding activity of the project will be a working conference taking place in Serbia. It will gather 100 participants from partner organizations, public institutions, embassies, the donor community, and the media with the aim of presenting the results of the project and influencing the state policy concerning the economic empowerment of the LGBT population.