|2nd Round Approved DPs|

Empower Scotland DP

Objectives
To contribute to the positive portrayal of ethnic minority communities and to highlight their skills and contribution to Scotland. Focusing on the positive impact and mutual advantage of the work force diversity to the Scottish labour market

• Creating an understanding on the Global aspects of racism,gender dynamics and disability issues in the Scottish context
• Improving ethnic minority employability by supporting vocational skills development and appropriate training needs
• Working in partnership with a wide range of employers and policy makers to promote and create opportunities to support the profesional skills development of ethnic minorities
• Addressing the issue of under-representation of ethnic minority people in employment by involving employers, policy makers, ethnic minority representatives in the debate and aiming to influence them and act as a guide for change and progress
• Forming closer links with the local media to tackle stereotyping and negative projection of ethnic minority people, and promoting positive representation of role models for ethnic minority communities
• Supporting the mainstreaming of equalities by conducting research about issues affecting ethnic minority employment and ensuring that the results of the reseach can be delivered in an effective manner to enable mainstream organsations to learn and alter their structures and patterns of behaviour
• Assisting grass roots organisations to be more effective, by identifying capacity building needs in ethnic minority organisations and communities and implementing and supporting the appropriate training.

Target Groups
Ethnic Minorities,  migrants, refugees, travellers

Pilot Projects and Mainstreaming Outcomes

 Adam Smith College piloted a project aiming to:

• Explore and agree potential innovative curriculum opportunities and methodologies with local organisations, incorporating arts and theatre
• Develop an innovative social justice programme which will provide social justice training for a wide range of employers across the public, voluntary and private sectors, which will challenge discriminatory practices and reduce inequality
• Enhance the number of social justice trainers.

The college was successful in piloting these activities and they lead to Adam Smith College reviewing and adopting the Race Equality Policy that resulted from these activities.

Meridian carried out innovative initiatives aiming to developed and created effective partnerships that supports ME women access to mainstream employment through developing tailored provisions, services and development routes in arrangement with mainstream partners; arrange and hold job opportunities event for ME women to link them directly to employers and engage policy makers. This program was successful in providing training o women who would not have access to training otherwise. Meridian is an accredited learning centre and worked with Learn Direct and Glasgow Metropolitan College to provide training and resources to the women. The training was undertaken at Meridian’s office. The Core Team is taking this project further with assistance from Learn Direct and is in discussions with Stow College to take the project further. Some of the funding from Big Lottery will be used to develop and facilitate the online training through Equal4all.

Multi Ethnic Aberdeen Ltd (MeAL) developed seminars /workshops to support volunteering & employment opportunities amongst multi ethnic communities.  The pilot project has been very successful and regular network lunches are now being held with volunteers.  The model is now part of MeAL mainstream provision and has been adopted by Business Gateway and Aberdeen City Council who will provide funding for future sessions.

EMET and Fife Council developed four pilot projects with the aim of establishing a holistic approach to tackling the multiple barriers facing BME people trying to access advice, training and employment particularly in mainstream government agencies. The project established a range of positive actions that have now been adopted by agencies in Fife as well as businesses in the private sector. The projects will continue as part of EMET’s core activities with funding from Fife Council.

Glasgow City Council implemented the 'Building a Bridge' project in conjunction with NHS Scotland as part of the Healthy Cities Initiative. The pilot targeted ME individuals and included a support service aimed at providing information about employment opportunities within NHS as well as a training module - 'Access to NHS'  The training courses were very successful and will continue to be funded by the Greater Glasgow NHS Board.

BCDP piloted an innovative project with the aim of improving the participation of ME people both in the Scottish economy and policy. To this aim a series of innovative activities were devised, among which business diversification seminars for ME small enterprises. An action research was also carried to measure the economical participation of ME communities in Edinburgh with a view to develop an economic and social inclusion strategy. A report has now been produced and is being circulated to politicians in local authorities and to policy makers in Scottish Government to highlight he key findings and recommendations with a view to creating an action plan to implement the economic and social inclusion strategy.

Skillnet developed advocacy programmes for disadvantaged ME communities in Edinburgh. The Advocacy Support Program was successful in creating an advocacy support and mentoring program. Four clients found employment and all of the trainees are doing voluntary work with Linknet Mentoring in Edinburgh. Skill and Nisus Scotland ran the program and Skillnet is continuing to run the program as part of its core work to develop confidence and self esteem in job seekers.

Skillnet also piloted a project to encourage employment of ME in sport and leisure industry through innovative training programmes which will lead to ME individuals acquiring coaching certificates for employment.This was successful in introducing seven people to the first steps in football coaching by assisting them to gain certificates in coaching. It was a successful partnership between Skillnet, Edinburgh City Council and the Scottish Football Association. All of the beneficiaries moved into voluntary work placements and discussions are taking place with Edinburgh Leisure to run more programs in the future. This activity will also form part of Skillnet’s core wok in the future and will receive funding from them. Hibernian and Heart of Midlothian football Clubs have also shown interest in the project and the Core Team and Skillnet are planning to hold development meetings with these clubs in the near future.

The contact details of the Lead Partner are listed below:

Lead Partner:              EMPOWER Scotland Ltd
Person to Contact:       Michael Philips
Email:                         michael@empowerscotland.org
Web site:                    www.equal4all.org