Youth Employment in Handicraft Sector

Youth Employment in Handicraft Sector: Training and employingyouth and women from Shkodra city and rural area, to produce traditional and new design handicraft product

Shkoder, AlbaniaShkoder

Project Stage:

Start-Up

Budget:

$10,000 - $50,000

Project Summary

Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

The purpose of this project is focused on training and employing unemployed youth and women from Shkodra region. They will produce traditional products combined with new and modern design with export prospect. This project enables the development of this traditional activity, which through vocational training courses will increase the number of employees,hence the production capacity and that in perspective gives way to export.

About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

The problem to be solved is the large number of unemployed and poverty for youth and women without a job and without a profession living in Shkoder and its rural areas. This target group is more appropriate to get involved in this project, not only because they rally need a job for their live hood but also because these products require creativity. This project will train youth and women in order to create possibilities of employment and self-employment for them. This is a possibility to create revenues for themselves and their families. This project will also help to keep cultural heritage.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

The proposed solution is to train unemployed youth and women of Shkoder city and rural area in the sector of handicraft. They will be trained in 6 different craft. Through training courses this target group will get to improve this profession that they already have by family tradition. In this way they have the chance to self-employment, to produce a high level quality product, to produce revenues for themselves and their families and to keep alive also the cultural heritage.

Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

These products are part of the old culture of the city of Shkoder and reflect quality, visual aesthetics, local motives, and application technique, indicators which have been constantly improved and adapted over time. In some crafts you can see working in three generations, which helps acquiring new techniques of contemporary crafts, giving us the opportunity to produce competitive products and models. This training courses were held on Kukes city for a shorter period by our agency and the feedback was positive. More than 50% of the trainees were hired and are now working on this field, creating revenues for themselves and their families.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

- After this project will be completed this model will be multiplied in other big cities of Albania. We have a lot of requests from the local government and the artisans there. -The Agency has already proposed a draft law for social entrepreneurship that aims to get fiscal incentives and is lobbing to the national government for it to be approved. This law will bring a huge change of the situation because there are 2177 artisans in Albania and just 20% of them are registered. This law will give also the possibility to the other to register and to be active in the market.

Sustainability

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

The problem of unemployment and poverty is a phenomenon that is present more in the target group of youth and women. Every year the Albanian government spends like 4.2-4.3 milliard ALL to support around 100 thousand poor families. This is a passive support scheme so it doesn't give a solution to this problem. The solution we propose is differ from these approaches used in years because we propose first to give a profession to this target group so in this way we prepare them to have equal access in the labor market. After the training courses they will produce high quality handicraft products , where the traditional and the modern design will combine.These products will be for the intern and external market. In this way this target group will have the possibility to self-employment, create revenues for themselves, their families and create an economic and social stability.

Team

-The agency team is specialized in training and preparing the artisans to organize , create social enterprise , be self sustainable. The agency team will train all the artisans how to be a successful social enterprise and ready to compete in the market with a high product quality. -Gjirokastra Foundation will help and approach the cultural and heritage traditional design and models of handicraft sector with their professional textile design staff.

About the Lead Co-Creation Partners

Organization:

Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organisation

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LEAD SOCIAL-MISSION ORGANIZATION

Type of organization (e.g. NGO, association, not-for-profit, foundation, social enterprise)

Association

Total Number of Full-Time Employees

Lead Contact First Name

Ardita

Lead Contact Last Name

Bonatti

Title

Executive Director

Country

Albania

Twitter URL

Facebook URL

Website

www,nbs.org.al

LEAD CORPORATE PARTNER

Organization Name

Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organisation

Total Number of Full-Time Employees

Lead Contact First Name

Sadi

Lead Contact Last Name

Petrela

Title

President of the foundation

Country

Albania

Twitter URL

Facebook URL

Organization Website

www.gjirokastra.org

Basic Info

Project Starting Year

2014

Primary European Country where this Project is creating social impact

, SH, Shkoder

Additional European countries where this Project is creating social impact

Select the category that best fits the type of your project:

New products & services: Entries in this category develop and offer essentials product and services that address needs currently unmet, Job Creation: Entries in this category create new jobs for people away from the labor market.

What awards or honors has the project received?

Project Summary

Co-Creation Model: Tell us about your main strategic partners and how the partnership truly create value. For each Partner please include its type (business/social/public), its name, a short description, its key motivation to participate in the co-creation project, and the key contributions it is making in the co-creation project. Please follow the format displayed below:

-Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organisation
-Foundation
-The Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Organization (GCDO) is an Albanian Non Government Organisation.Established in 2001, its mission is to conserve, revitalize and promote the historic city of Gjirokastra. The GCDO is funded by the Packard Humanities Institute and is a sister organisation of the International Center for Albanian Archaeology
-The GCDO is really interested in the cultural and heritage part. The handicraft sector is part of the Albanian culture and this project will contribute to save and inherit it to the Albanian youth.

-Drande Stani
-Business
-Drande Stani is one the master artisans in Shkodra. She has a long experience in the handicraft sector, specially hand-loom carpets. She has her own business now, self-employed, had employed other women as well and she is a good example of success in the handicraft sector.
-Drande has convert her passion for handicraft work in a profitable profession. She wants this beautiful tradition to live and be transmitted to the next generation.

Impact

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact. Please specify using qualitative and quantitative data (e.g. # of indirect and direct beneficiaries); help us understand how this solution truly makes a difference.

The direct beneficiaries will be workers who will be trained and employed in this business, and management personnel, in the first stage, after 10 month of training courses, 100 employed and trained.
Indirect beneficiaries: 500 Rural families in particular Highland areas of rural North Albania that supply the cooperative with raw birch willow, wool, wood, etc, The society of Shkodra and other big cities of Albania clients, customer that will get a high quality product.

Sustainability

Funding: How is your project financial supported? [select all that apply]

Foundations, NGOs, Businesses, Regional government, National government.

Sustainability Plan: Has your project already reached financial sustainability? If not, what is this solutio’s plan to ensure financial sustainability? Do the main partners have enough stake to sustain the solution? If this project requires limited budget, how will other resources be secured to maintain or grow this work?

At the beginning the project will be financially supported by our partners that we have listed above. After that, it is planed that the artisan creates social enterprise and be self sustainable , so they will produce handicraft products,the best quality in the market,combined the traditional&new design, sell them in the intern ,online sales and external market and this will create revenue and give the possibility to be self sustainable and growth their social business step by step.

Team

Founding Story: Share a story about the "Aha!" moment that led the Partners to get started and/or to see the potential for this to succeed.

We were thinking about this project from a long time. With our Partners we have a long and great experiences of collaboration. The "Aha" moment maybe can be consider the first National Handicraft Fair we organised in Tirana, capital city of Albania. There we had the confirmation that the handicraft sector must be stronger and well organised , the youth must be involved and inherit this beautiful tradition. The youth can enrich this tradition with new designs and "give birth" to new products desalinated for intern and external market.

About the Co-Creation

Barriers: What main barriers may you have encountered to co-create during the creation and implementation of the project and how did you try to overcome them?

Actually we don't have any barriers between each other. We are fighting together to get approved the draft law for the social enterprise. This is the biggest barrier for us in the moment.

Governance: What is the type of the relationship between the partners? (e.g. joint venture, contractual relationship, joint project...)

The partners have a long history of collaboration in different projects. In this project as well we have decided to join our resources with the only aim to make real our idea.

Interaction model: How is the project a transformative partnership? How is the interaction transforming the partnering organizations and their employees/ leadership in terms of creating a new vision, new management practices, new skills and new organizational structures? Please provide for concrete examples

It is a good possibility for both of us to collaborate , to learn and exchange opinions with each other in the field of handicraft. It is a big challenge for both of us because we are planning to create a catalog with the best products combined traditional and new style design in the handicraft sector.

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