Albanian Disability Rights Foundation &National Agency for Employment and Skills together with the Municipality of Tirana are implementing the project ”Advance Social and Labour Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities”, that will be run for 26 months through the financial support of the European Union in Albania.

The project aims to strengthen capacity at national, regional and municipal levels to effectively support access of citizens with disabilities in inclusive social and labour programmes and services. This will be achieved through building a strategic and operational partnership between municipalities, public and non-public agencies to learn, advance and embed an innovative practice of supported employment service, contributing to social and labour inclusion for persons with disabilities. Through project interventions, necessary mechanisms, infrastructure, material and human resources are created/strengthened and adopted by municipality of Tirana, NESA and its regional and local offices and ADRF, to improve the PES to serve persons with disabilities and to embed in the system the innovative practice of Supported Employment Service for persons with disability, through transferred experience/expertise of ADRF; The innovative practice of Supported Employment for Persons with Disabilities piloted by ADRF will benefit round 180 job seeking persons with disabilities; Standards of the service are adopted and supportive public and private nets and mechanisms effectively used to ensure its effectiveness and sustainability; A communication platform, including an e-platform created to share and transfer the experience built in Tirana, on the design, management, governance, funding, and delivery of the innovative practice of specialized supported employment service for persons with disabilities, in three other targeted municipalities, Elbasan, Durres, Shkodra, but also national wide, to ensure scaling up, replication and sustainability. A local network of supported employment service for persons with disabilities will be created and strengthened, as a mechanism for policy dialogue and practice learning and further developments in the social and employment service sector.