Date: Wednesday, 19 April 2023 17.00 – 18.00 h. CET, per Zoom
Speaker: Paola Vulterini
Translation: Croatian, Czech, French, German, and Turkish
The webinar recording is available below.

Valueable – A perfect example of how job inclusion can succeed!

Thanks to funding from the European Commission through 4 Erasmus+ projects, the Valueable network was born in 2014 and is now operating in 7 countries.

Valueable is both a trademark and a European-wide network of about 130 members, which are hospitality companies (hotels, restaurants, coffee bars, fast food…) including people with intellectual disabilities within their workforce as trainees or as workers.

Many EDSA members are among its promoters and act as training and placement agencies. Since the beginning, the network has provided its members with tools aimed at facilitating job inclusion.

Valueable has been recognised as a good practice by the European Commission and the International Labour Organisation. Last November, it received the second prize in the Social Entrepreneurship World Competition in Tourism.

Paola Vulterini will discuss how this was done and how further EDSA members could join Valueable and find job inclusion opportunities for their association.

Valueable: A trademark
Valueable: A network
– our history
– our people
– our tools
– our proposals
Which will be the 8th Valuable country?

Biography

Paola is a designer and manager of projects designed for people with disabilities. Since obtaining her MA in Political Science with a focus on Disability Rights legislation from the University of Rome La Sapienza forty years ago, she has been an ally of the Disability Rights Movement.

From 1985 to 1986, she worked at the Office of the European Commission in favour of people with disabilities. Since 2001, she has been the head of the International Office of the Italian Association of People with Down Syndrome (AIPD); here, she has also promoted and managed projects aimed at training the leaders of European Down Syndrome Associations on project design, in partnership with the European Down Syndrome Association (EDSA).

Paola’s projects obtained European grants that allowed her to enhance new programs directed at people with disabilities in the fields of job inclusion, exercise of political rights, training mobility, tourism, and art.

In addition, she has worked for the Italian Government on improving the legal framework on disability issues, and has taught at the Universities of Roma Tre, La Sapienza, and Foro Italico.
She currently manages the European Valueable network project.
www.valueablenetwork.eu