Silver Workers

The idea at the base of this project is to offer to 50s+ jobseekers (unemployed and/or dismissed), so-called “silver workers” the re-integration into the job market by mainly transforming their hobbies and other interests into start up’s. Recently, middle-aged workers have suddenly found themselves out of work, forced after years and perhaps decades to reinvent a new professional and a new life. The basic objective of this project is therefore to improve the knowledge, skills, competences and working tools, to make silver workers able to give birth to a new business, putting into practice their creativity, their ideas and their hobbies.

The project aims at:

- improving educational offer promoting the most appropriate and effective education devoted to over 50s, especially low skilled, jobseekers, in line with the priority “Fostering access to continuing VET, including groups at risk”

- promoting and enhance a new labour market and create new jobs and tasks, much more up to date with the needs and trends of contemporary society and of labour market, with the aim to increase labour market relevance of VET;

- complying with the Horizontal priority "Developing basic and transversal skills using innovative methods";

The project consists of three main phases:

During the first phase the consortium will conduct a preliminary study and surveys to develop policy recommendations and provide the basis for the respondence of project results to the real needs of the target group.

 In the second phase the training system will be developed, with a modular approach, which will make “silver-workers” able to develop skills and competences for coping with their job loss and for developing their own start up businesses. Further, target groups will benefit from a platform, useful for them in order to: keep on using training materials on e-learning mode; settle their own start up, access mentoring services by experts/executives; develop networks and potential deals with other expert entrepreneurs.

The Target Groups will potentially be able, as a final result, to develop entrepreneurial and enterprising skills and competences in order to set-up their own start-up companies thanks to the coaching, mentoring and training about entrepreneurship, as well as by exercising on real cases.

During the third phase, the beneficiaries involved in the project will also test and evaluate the results, contributing to the fine-tuning and final release of the training system.

It is envisaged the direct involvement of at least 30 silver workers per country in training and evaluation activities, selected through a contest open to 50+ citizens interested in developing new entrepreneurship initiatives. Besides this, the consortium intends to involve at least 100 representatives of the target group thanks to distant learning activities, communication and dissemination.

Also, the partners will be engaged in the mapping of stakeholders potentially interested in exploiting the results, so to develop 5 national European databases, including 200 organisations each (more than 1000 in total). These stakeholders will be addressed by implementing a tailored strategy for dissemination and exploitation, aiming to favour the use of the results on a large scale from the local to the European level.

Results expected for both the short and the long term are:

- to cope with" professional obsolescence " by introducing a mechanism that helps the 50+ workers detach from obsolete models and tasks are no longer adapted to the needs of the contemporary market, to " reinvent " new ways of working based on the spirit personal initiative;

- to develop of opportunities hidden in a labour market and / or tasks hitherto non-existent or insufficiently clear, through a platform of networking opportunities and an area dedicated

- to align with the professional skills necessary to integrate into new professions to date compared to contemporary trends;

- to develop of skills and ability to self - entrepreneurial, thanks not only to training but also offer guided through the support of experienced executives.

- to strongly boost in the direction of "flex - security", thanks to the triggering of a mechanism of stimulation of entrepreneurship for TGs involved, driven to find their own path.

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