During the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20, Member States agreed to launch a process to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), whose achievement period concluded in 2015. The SDGs are to address all three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental, economic and social) and be coherent with and integrated into the United Nations global development agenda beyond 2015. The envisaged SDGs have a time horizon of 2015 to 2030. Disability is referenced in various parts of the SDGs and specifically related to employment, inequality, accessibility of human settlements.
In Goal 8: to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, the international community aims to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.
Closely linked is Goal 10, which strives to reduce inequality within and among countries by empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all, including persons with disabilities.
workABLE project linked to Goal 8 and 10: according to the objective identified in the rationale, the project expected results refer to provide a specialization to adult educators operating as Job Coaches for PMD. This is possible thanks to the definition of a shared basis of knowledge on both the regulatory framework of each participating country regarding supporting measures for job placement of PMD and on the methodologies and practices today available to support PMD social inclusion. The project’s innovativeness makes steady steps towards stimulating sustainable, inclusive economic growth, and full and productive employment and decent work for all (Goal 8), as well as empowering and promoting the social, economic and political inclusion of all, including persons with disabilities (Goal 10). Indeed, the project’s innovativeness consists in introducing a new methodology, based on the “Place and Train” approach, which considers the PMD a PERSON and a WORKER, even before considering it a patient with a disability to whom provide some form of protected work. By focusing on empowerment and supporting individual skills and competencies through a short training and then a rapid integration in “competitive work” in the ordinary labor market where the worker is accompanied by the temporary external support of a coach (“place and train”), workABLE project is strongly committed to achieving SDG Goals 8 and 10.
