Objective
There are 1 million of deaf Europeans, suffering from an average 50% unemployment rate and 21.1% of which is at risk of poverty. The limited access to employment is the result of the insensitivity to their learning needs in the current educational system, which does not provide them with quality or consistent education in sign language. They usually finish their compulsory schooling with diminished chances at a qualified job and a professional career. Current job skills courses given by different private or public institutions do not use teaching methods and materials that are adapted to their learning needs.
During our 14 years of experience in deafness and sign language education, we have developed an effective educational system for deaf people to raise their employment chances: job skills courses taught by qualified teachers fluent in sign language and specialized professional training developed in partnership with employers. Our system also includes bespoke training material, remote access and deaf-centred didactic approaches. 70% of our students finds a long-time qualified job.
With Signs for Europe we aim at replicating throughout Europe our successful business model by making it into a social franchise. We will invest €2M to standardize our didactic concepts and materials, define the processes needed to run the franchise, set the necessary IT platforms to train the franchisees in our unique concept and gather all the information in a Franchise Handbook that will be handed over as part of the franchise deal. The final approach will be tested with 2 pilot experiences in Germany.
In 5 years, Signs for Europe will help 39,200 deaf Europeans to find a long-term job. Our unique approach will allow governments in our target markets to save 863€M in unemployment subsidies. equalizent will grow hiring 11 new people and earning 4€M in profits as we expand our business internationally.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
1020 WIEN
Austria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.