The structural challenges the European Union are facing especially on "an ageing workforce and growing skills and labour shortages in some sectors and regions" (source: Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the European Social Fund and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1081/2006 from 2011) The new programme for 2014 ("ERASMUS for all") shall promote the better functioning of labour markets "by enhancing the transnational geographical mobility of workers". We are aware that a huge number of employees from some new member states in Eastern Europe are now working in Western Europe. E.g. a rising number of Spanish and Greek young unemployed people are searching for jobs in Germany. But there are very few taking advantage of the opportunities to do short training or job shadowing placements. Supporting the mobility of employees and trainees is central to all EU-programs. But as we face new European challenges within the Labour Market "Mobility" will become one of the central objectives in the new programme-period of the European Social Fund as well as in LLP. Also the member states and European regions will focus their operational programs of structural funds more on transnational activities and mobility.
Thus increasing the quantity and quality of mobilities especially for groups of unemployed or employees with special needs is one of the most important objectives of the different EU-programs. They are mostly segregated and have problems both accessing the labour market and participating on LifeLongLearning activities. For this group the existing framework conditions and tools/methods as well as the impact need to be reviewed.

Especially people with special needs and disadvantage such as being disabled, single mothers, blind people, migrants, (long-term) unemployed, or from rural areas . Small and medium-sized companies as host enterprises find it very difficult to take part in and gain benefits from mobility projects.

There is no practical recording or reporting of existing experiences, best practices and tools/guides used in different EU countries All partners of M2U are involved in different kind of European mobilities. Most of them have experiences with participants with special needs or from segregated groups. They are service providers, learning centres, umbrella organisations, employer organisations and also social enterprise. Each partner has extensive and relevant skills and experience. Some of them are using special preparation checklists, but some organisations have only a "collective virtual knowledge" which works well but is not published.

An experiential knowledge does exist but in different forms: Mobility manuals under LdV mobility, various mobility reports in written form, project reports, short checklists on specific target groups (Integration through exchange IdA in Germany by Arbeit und Bildung), checklists of project partner INIBIA for migrants and some unwritten organisational knowledge of partners staff.

In the partnership discussion before preparing this Grundtvig LP-consortium all partners identified, that there is a demand for an exchange of experiences and structured knowledge about best practices. There is also a need for easy to use guidelines, checklists and training material how to prepare, organize and evaluate these mobilities by SME and employees or trainees from these special target groups

It is not clear if each target group requires different preparation and support, or if it is enough to set only few and basic conditions for the preparation, implementation and post-processing of mobility. But ultimately all partners agreed that there is a need for a broader knowledge base, more and better tools to increase number and quality of mobilities for the special target groups indentified.

Our project structure plan can b downloaded here.

Objective of M2U is to help training & learning centres and other in mobility process involved institutions and adult trainers to prepare, organize and evaluate mobility activities for special target groups of employees (disadvantaged, disabled, single mothers, blind people, migrants, (long-term) unemployed, from rural areas) in a better and sustainable way. M2U gives these employees and SME easy-to-use guidelines & checklists to reduce access-barriers and to attract employees and employers to use the instrument of mobility.
The experience of M2U-partners show that the access to mobility for special target groups has a lot of barriers. Problems are mostly based on the special needs e.g. language skills, children, need for assistance and barrier free access, in some groups no one was in foreign countries before, financial problems. Also SME have also problems and barriers to employ foreign people with special needs. They have no experiences and no specials skills to work with these clients. Also prejudices are existing. M2U focuses its LPS to find solutions to close down these barriers & making the access to mobility better.
1 Research on existing best practices and tools/methods for mobility
2 Analysis of the needs, pre-conditions for mobility, regarding diff. target groups and host employers: Preparation accompaniment backing post-processing Interviews & questionnaires with participants & host companies (SME) (evaluation of experiences)
3 M2U is to work out the basic features of such a preparation programme and makes appropriate recommendations. M2U will then develop a guideline with recommendations & checklists for training centres, potential mobile employee or trainee as well as for hosting enterprises
4 Cooperative and comparative learning at both sides is the appropriate measure: Mutual learning among the partnership, between the national and/or European experts and/or enterprises between experts, adult trainer and at least by involvement of the peer-groups (people with special needs & host employers). Participants from the peer-groups are the "instrument of control", which compare the "theoretical" experience with the "subjective" reality of the adult trainer
5 Enhancing mobility in Europe for different target groups, learning about success factors, conditions, ways and methods to improve the results
6 Activities to disseminate the experiences (study visits, manual, website, social networks), seminars will be used for study tours to best practises