Research Group
Website: http://uaw.unitedatwork.eu/index.php
Presentation:
The UAW Project "United at Work", supported by the European Union Program for Employment and Social Solidarity PROGRESS (2007-2013) was developed by SCML - Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, with an external evaluation carried out by Dinâmia'CET. The Project emerged as a social experimentation project with the main objective of analyzing the relevance and the appropriateness of promoting projects of intergenerational entrepreneurship as a way to fight against highly qualified unemployment of youth and seniors. The Project combines active labor market policies and social policies, as recommended by the European Commission for a long-term economic recovery strategy.
The Project started in December 2013 and lasted until December 2015 with 120 participants, including highly qualified and unemployed young people up to 30 years old and seniors between 50 and 64 years old. The Project included Team Building and Capacity Building and Incubation activities designed to stimulate and accelerate the process of creating teams, ideas and business projects.
Dinâmia'CET's external evaluation methodology included a set of participant surveys and interviews with the partners of the Project (Beta i, IAPMEI, IEFP, Caixa de Crédito Agrícola, Gulbenkian Foundation, La Caixa Foundation , Beth Johnson Foundation) and with the teams of participants.
As a result of the evolution of the teams and business projects throughout the Project, 19 business projects were created in the areas of health, social action, culture, heritage and tourism, some of them intergenerational.
The analysis of survey results shows the advantages and difficulties of intergenerationality in entrepreneurship as perceived by the participants and the partners of the Project. Among the most favorable aspects are the complementarity of the experience of seniors with the flexibility of young people and the combination of the knowledge of the market by seniors with the knowledge of new technologies (informatics) by young people. A good understanding in general was found between seniors and young people, only with some conflicts due to personality factors.
Initiatives that contribute to an adequate knowledge and interpersonal understanding of the participants and to the transfer of knowledge and capacities between the generations proved to be important, such as team building, mentoring and team and business projects monitoring.
Period: 2013 - 2015
Funding Institution: E.U. PROGRAMME for EMPLOYMENT and SOCIAL SOLIDARITY (PROGRESS)
Coordination: Maria do Carmo Pinto, Vasco Gonçalves (DINÂMIA'CET-IUL)
DINÂMIA'CET-IUL Team: Maria de Fátima Ferreiro, Margarida Perestrelo, Mafalda Pífano
Resources:
Updated: 02/02/2018