TAD - Projects Update March 1999

TAD Projects

Update March 1999

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Presented at the Transnational Meeting in Manchester, UK, 25th & 26th March 1999

Cepadite (Spanish National Project)
Contatto (Italian National Project)
On-line (UK National Project)
Tecformin (Gran Canaria National Project)

CEPADITE (Spanish National Project)

Have implemented the Telecentre with 20 people, covering a wide range of physically disability, working around the area of telework: Graphic art, Web-site design, Translations , Administration, and management (accounting, legal and labour) services.

The group of teleworkers is spread all over Spain (9 people in Madrid and 11 in several of the main cities and smaller towns of the self-governing Communities of Galicia, Basque Provinces, Asturias, Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla-León, Extremadura).

The training programme for the teleworkers has been carried out prior to actually offering their services to the companies. The course "Skills for Teleworking" has been designed in a mixed mode which combines:

2 face-to-face seminars of one week's duration
2 months of "teletraining" from the teleworker's home, based on a Ms Exchange group messaging service.

The methodology is of a theoretical-practical nature based on self-study and "collaborative learning" strategies by means of creating discussion groups, both virtually and face-to-face. To this end certain activities have been designed so that the teleworker can develop the capability to structure resources and solutions, to manage his/her work in the broadest sense, to solve problems, acquire resources to resolve conflicts, to carry out negotiations, to develop tools for self-control and strategies for teamworking.

The group has proved to be very successful with good participation levels, and they are very motivated to start work. The training will finish after Easter, and the trainees will become self-employed. To support this transition they each will receive at grant of 4,200 Euros, in addition they will receive a monthly allowance of 100,000 pesetas. Also technical and business skills support will be provided by the project.

The biggest step is now to commercialise the project and arrange contracts for telelworking. Part of the problems around this commercialisation is that many companies in Spain have not accepted the idea of teleworking or are not aware of its potentials and roles in changing the nature of working. The problems of developing and finding contract work for teleworking is an issue that occurs across Europe.

Contatto (Italian National Project)

The training programme started in December 1998 with the specific objective of establishing a co-operative specialising in electronic publishing.
In total there are 16 trainees, 8 with visual impairments and 8 who are blind, in addition there are 4 other workers providing administration, technical and language support etc., to the project.
The training programme has proved to be successful and has supported good motivation from the trainees. The training has amount to approximately 260 hours so far, 150 in infomatics, 80 in English language skills and 30 in communications. The full training course, approximately 1,120 hrs, is projected to finish in November 1999.

The next stage is to introduce marketing, enterprise start-up, and market research skills focused within the publishing sector. There has been some research work in the market area with particular interest on ecological sites and knowledge of European Cities.
The project has been developing links with industries, mostly SMEs, Chambers of Commerce to provide work and contracts to the co-operative.

The trainees have now gained skills particularly relating to graphic design and music production using Information and Communication Technologies.
There has been considerable interest in learning English as another language, as this increases the access to using the Internet and information contained within it. From this there is interest in potential work opportunities in the publishing sector within Europe.

Each trainee will receive a grant of 3,000 Euros to support the start-up of the Co-operative. It is expected that the Co-operative will be constituted by the end of June '99.

On-Line (UK National Project)

The project trained 30 information workers, in the 'Certificate of Telematics', a European recognised qualification, from various disability organisations. Sessions were also held for users of these organisations to introduce the use of Internet and emails etc.
The organisation of the above training demonstrated the lack of equal access for disabled people to training and training facilities. There were barriers to providing training ranging from a lack of available accessible computer hardware & software, training materials and disability awareness from training providers.

The Information Service has been developed and is available through the Internet, there are changes to be made to improve its accessibility. Although the design has followed guidelines from the W3c - Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
As the site continues to develop we are now looking to include areas around personal development, CV production etc. Also to include more local information that is relevant to the users within the North West of England.

The issue of accessibility has grown in importance as the project has progressed, it has become clear the issues within this area are not being addressed within the region. We are now working on mainstreaming the issues with other projects, public and private sector organisations, the aim is for guidelines on accessibility to be adopted.

TECFORMIN (Gran Canaria National Project)

The Island Government asked for Fundescan to lead the project, TECFORMIN, last September '98, it has only recently received approval to go ahead.
It should be noted that the area is economically different from the tourist areas and in fact has the characteristics of a rural development project.

The project is now selecting potential trainees, total number will be 20, from the Highlands of Gran Canaria, and there have been initial difficulties in finding the number of disabled people required.
The current Census was out of date with regard to the number of disabled people and other sources of information i.e.., Doctors records, school records. As an additional element to the project the Government has asked if the Census can be updated.

It is estimated that the initial selection will take one more week and pre-training is expected to start in the second week of May.
At the present we are developing the design of the pre-training courses and identifying course areas, such as Teleworking.

From trainees identified there will be a mix of different skill levels, for instance five of the group have University level education, while another has school level education. This will obviously influence the delivery and design of the training course.
An additional influence on the design and range of training is coming through the needs of the tourist sector, with which the project has started developing links with to provide telework opportunities. Their demands and needs include graphic design and 'back office' skills from our trainees.