ACDC, Romania
Contact: Carmen Podani carmen.podani@gmail.com
ACDC Romania is a professional association and training provider established in 2011, to support the sustainability of 255 disadvantaged rural communities, which have previously received technical assistance under the Knowledge Economy Project (KEP), funded by World Bank during 2007-2011, to develop local Telecenters/ Public Points of Access to Internet (PAPI) providing ICT based services to citizens. All KEP project information, including KEP communities’ description and testimonials of direct beneficiaries, is available on www.ecomunitate.ro/en/.
The mission of the association is to promote community development through consulting activities in the field of key domains for sustainable development.
ACDC has developed a network of partners within the field of social and professional insertion, schools, libraries including e-centers ruled by municipalities in rural areas providing social inclusion training and consulting services.
ACDC’s current activities are focused on consulting services offering solutions for social inclusion of vulnerable members of the community that are situated in disadvantaged rural areas, considered amongst the poorest regions in EU. ACDC Romania has developed programs that main target groups are represented by: poor people, Roma, victims of domestic violence, women, people with mental disabilities and people isolated geographically.
Relevant activities of the association are:
- implementing projects in the area of community development and social inclusion
- developing specific training programs for social inclusion of persons belonging to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, Roma, immigrants, persons at high social risk, people with disabilities
- sustain and develop e-learning activities by developing e- learning training modules to train community facilitators
- develop training programs for e-inclusion to increase digital skills of vulnerable groups
- cross border cooperation
ACDC has developed a network of partners within the field of social and professional insertion, schools, libraries including e-centres ruled by municipalities in rural areas providing social inclusion training and consulting services. More recently, we have added to our professional network 5 private social enterprises to develop work-based integration of young disadvantaged people by offering them apprenticeship training and support services to access the labour market and link with jobs within private business sector.
At the time when employment is increasingly difficult for individuals who are at a significant distance from the labor market because of their disability or disadvantage, it is essential that we create the jobs for such groups and one of the most obvious solutions is to facilitate the start-up and operation of Social Firm and social co-operative businesses that offer real, paid, sustainable employment options within a supportive working environment.
We developed new projects initiatives to:
- Promote innovative approach and practical solutions to combat unemployment of young people and facilitate their insertion on the labour market
- Arise awareness regarding NEETs education and employment needs
- Influence attitude of local authorities
- Transfer knowledge and relevant information to NEETs, educators and stakeholders to change behaviour of communities
Also, ACDC is an active member of Social Firms Europe CEFEC, which is a European Network of Social Firms, Social Co-operatives, NGO’s and organizations that all share the objective of creating paid work for disabled and disadvantaged people.