On 25 January 2022, EPIC participated in the Kick-off meeting of the project LOCAL: Boosting Silver Economy through local Community Mentoring.
Funded by the European Commission, within the framework of the Erasmus Plus programme – Action 2 Partnerships for Cooperation – the project aims to create and test a Mentoring programme targeting adults over 50. The aim is to enhance their professional activities and promote the ‘Silver Economy’ as an engine for the economic development of communities, particularly rural areas.
The idea is to involve adults aged 50 and over in entrepreneurship as a career option to counteract ageing, prolong employment and professional integration and reduce unemployment in old age. In this way, the project will help improve the social inclusion of adults over 50 and contribute to the creation/development of new companies/start-ups in the Silver Economy ecosystem.
LOCAL brings together a partnership of 9 organisations from 8 countries:
- ALAD (Portugal) – A non-profit organisation founded in 1998, whose mission is the promotion of equal opportunities and non-discrimination of groups at greatest risk and vulnerability. ALAD is the coordinator of the LOCAL project, which grew out of the organisation’s many years of experience with the older population and its more recent experience in the social enterprise sector.
- Mindshift (Portugal) – a consulting company specialising in human resources that invests in people’s performance and skills enhancement, seeking to increase digital and interpersonal maturity in organisations and society.
- INFODEF (Spain) – private research, development and innovation centre that supports the modernisation of education systems and pedagogical innovation in public and private institutions at national and European level.
- CSI (Cyprus) -Research and development organisation that promotes innovations that can bring positive change to governments, local governments, non-profit agencies, commercial entities and educational institutions. -The Rural Hub (Ireland) – Association established in response to the impact of the economic crisis on small rural villages and towns in Ireland. Areas of specialisation: community development and a range of local initiatives to support the social inclusion of disadvantaged rural youth, migrants and older people.
- EPIC (Italy) – The European Platform for International Cohesion (EPIC) is an NGO founded in Italy in early 2020 to promote the values of European integration in all its social and economic aspects. EPIC was created to counter the wave of anti-European sentiment by organising awareness-raising events among civil society to promote the many opportunities of the European Union.
- ADES (Romania) – a non-profit entity founded in 1995 with the mission to create positive social and economic change in communities across Romania in a professional, ethical and responsible manner.
- AED (Bulgaria) – NGO established in 2005 to support the local community and create networks for economic and social development through project implementation, training and consultancy activities.
- Inthecity (The Netherlands) – Creative multimedia agency with recognised and proven skills in filmmaking, animation, web design, event video production and social media through its team.
Over a period of two years, the partners will work together to produce the following results
Identification of adults over 50 who can act as role models and tell their story in motivational videos
Mentoring training programme to support professionals in the field of Adult Education in developing the entrepreneurial skills of adults over 50
Organisation of thematic Mentoring cycles to directly engage the target group in the opportunities of the Silver Economy
To stay up-to-date: LOCAL Facebook Page
