INTRODUCTION

Evaluation reports are important tools for collecting, organizing and analyzing a particular project’s activities and outcomes. It is crucial for understanding the progress of the project, the effectiveness of the procedure, and the areas requiring improvements, which will ultimately help in better planning.

The first step in ELIE 2.0 project was to identify enterprise, employability and learning aspirations, needs and opportunities among groups of people vulnerable to social exclusion in order to create Elie 2.0 Community Enterprise Guide. The guide was co-created with stakeholders including representatives from target groups vulnerable to social exclusion, VET providers, schools, local enterprises, local municipal authorities and health services .

The next step was to pilot the guide among the groups indicated above and carry out the evaluation of the guide.

This report is a summary of the evaluation carried out in IO2 – Pilot of Elie 2.0 Community Enterprise Guide.

THE COURSE OF THE PILOTING PROCESS

Pilot of ELIE 2.0 took place in two  contrasting community settings per partner country to ensure that it enables effective tailoring of the ELIE 2.0 ENTERPRISE LEARNING TOOLKIT (output 3 and the ELIE 2.0 Enterprise Coaching Kit – output 6) to identified community needs and priorities. Data from pilot questionnaires were collected in the evaluation table and THE INCUBATOR FOUNDATION – partner responsible for the IO 2 –  formulated conclusions and recommendations, which were the basis for modifying the guide.

The evaluation criteria were as follows:

1. Transparency
2. Readability  – understandable language and texts
3. Usefulness of information
4. Range of topics
5. Usage of the guide – easiness and simplicity
6. The accuracy of identification of community enterprise aspirations and barriers
7. The accuracy of identification of community employment goals and opportunities
8. The accuracy of identification of  education needs

Additionally, there were a few questions to answer:

1. Do you believe there is any information missing in the Elie 2.0 guide?
2. If you were planning to start your business, would you find ELIE 2.0 COMMUNITY ENTERPRISE GUIDE useful?
3. Are you satisfied with the way the guidelines work – does the Elie 2.0 guide work for you?
4. Do you plan to put into practice the information contained in the ELIE 2.0 COMMUNITY ENTERPRISE GUIDE
5. If you take one minute and reflect, what changes or additions would you make in this guide?

This survey  gathered information with the aim of improving the tools it referred to. The  input from interviewees was extremely helpful  in formulating reliable conclusions and recommendations.

CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

During the pilot the team obtained information from 14 interviewees representing both genders, at various age, in varied social situations (ex. long-term unemployed, single parent, people with chronic health condition, recent migrant, ex-offenders) or representing the following organization: organisation working with unemployed people, community centre, youth organisation, health centre, local government organization, regional government organization, training provider, educational establishment.

The main conclusions from questionnaires were as follows:

1. The necessity to enter the numbering of the individual stages described in the guide.
2. The need to correct the translations prepared by the partners from Greece and Bulgaria.

The recommendations were as follows:

1. The recommendations for all partner was to number the particular stages in Community Enterprise Guide
2. The recommendation for partners from Greece and Bulgaria  was to improve and correct the translations.

All the above recommendations were implemented by the date of this report.

The evaluation table of IO2 constitutes the appendix to this report