The project, over two years, will design, implement and review a Civic Engagement learning programme for socially excluded young people. Organisations from three countries will participate (Ireland, Greece and Portugal). There will be two partners from each country: one with expertise in education, research and review; and the other partner being an NGO with a development base within the excluded community targeted. The lead partner is a Regional Youth Service from Ireland, with extensive experience of integrating innovative practice and learning into mainstream youth work services. Programme participants (aged 16-20) will be drawn from the Traveller youth community in Ireland and the Roma youth community in Greece and in Portugal.The project is based on the premise that the standard progression routes (relating to labour market, education and training opportunities) are often difficult, if not impossible, to access for members of marginalised and excluded groups of young people. Experience to date – working with our target groups in each country – has shown that delivery of broader learning programmes about engagement with society can act as an essential platform for more meaningful progression in the longer term. The learning programme to be implemented and tested through PACE is aimed at increasing knowledge about civil society, and increasing capacity amongst young participants interacting with wider community and mainstream service provision. In order to recognise the formal and informal learning of the young people, the prorgramme will include innovative assessment methodologies , including Youthpass and tools as developed in previous EU funded projects. The experience of our project team to date has also demonstrated that these aims are more likely to be fulfilled if the learning environment is one of mutual support that can be maintained in the longer term. As well as delivering a learning programme about active citizenship engagement, therefore, the PACE project will also impart skills in self-organisation, self-representation and mutual support structures that are sustainable into the future.The project comprisess the following elements:1. Reaching transnational agreement on course content and delivery. The Irish partner will take the leading role in this – based on successful initiatives already delivered, but all partners need to agree on relevance and consistency within their own practice base. This phase will also aim to achieve clarity amongst partners on approach and style of delivery.2. Programme implementation. The programme will be delivered as part of NGO development programme with young people in their own environments. The academic partner in each country will provide advice and support in programme implementation, including assistance with the ongoing application of evaluation mechanisms and instruments.3. Post programme support for participants. All participants will be supported (through information, advice and advocacy delivered as part of ongoing NGO development programmes) in efforts to build upon their learning in the programme. 4. Review of outcomes. All participants will be centrally involved in assessing the programme contribution to their own knowledge, levels of civic engagement and future progression prospects. Central to this will be a multiplier event bringing together youth workers from all three countries in an international seminar. The seminar will allow for presentation of the results and assessment of the programme, recording of outcomes to date, identifying elements of good practice and ‘what has made the difference’, as well as a mapping of future development pathways and routes to influence mainstream policy. Academic partners will act as a resource in seminar preparation: producing data collection instruments for review, supporting the preparation of presentations, and undertaking research into relevant policy environments in each country.The main project outcomes will be:• Increased capacity and enhanced potential for individual participants.• Significant assets for youth NGO sectors in each jurisdiction through the enhancement of leadership skills, mutual support structures and increased capacity to pass on learning content and style.• Greatly enhanced understanding of blockages to progression for those young people who are most excluded from progression opportunities, and an approach to addressing these blockages that is fully tested and reviewed.• Stakeholder-specific recommendations addressing how the approach can be best supported and embedded in the mainstream service responses of each participant country; as well as pointers as to how lessons emerging can be taken on board in the broader European policy context (especially in relation to LLL).

Roma face a number of challenges in gaining employment in the form of paid work. To begin with, lagging educational levels and the lack of qualifications and vocational skills lead to highunemployment rates and high inactivity levels among the Roma population. Moreover, Roma have faced significant changes in their employment patterns, as the demand for traditionalcrafts, products and services progressively diminished. Furthermore, the economic crisis seems to have had profound negative effects for those at the bottom end of income distribution,Roma included.Persons with low qualifications, in low-wage sectors and in precarious employment were among the first to lose their jobs. Also, extreme residential segregation, both in urban and inrural settings, and poor housing conditions experienced by Roma population throughout Europe, exert a detrimental impact on their employment opportunities.Finally, the pathway of Roma to employment is hindered, also, by a number of structural barriers. Roma in Europe face prejudice, intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion. Theproblems faced by Roma are complex and therefore require an integrated approach. The vulnerability of Roma households is rooted in multiple and interlinked deprivations. Within this context, and in view of the present economic downturn and increasingly competitive labor markets, Roma need more than ever to gain skills and competences to enhance their employability. Since any attempt to increase Roma employment by others faces such high hurdles, the alternative of fostering entrepreneurship and self-employment for Roma becomes an important consideration.The main focus of the ROMA STARTUP project is dealing with the issue of young Roma entrepreneurship. The ROMA STARTUP project rests on the assumption that as long as the social and economic conditions of the Roma preclude a significant proportion of its population from being assimilated into the workforce, entrepreneurship can emerge as a viable alternative to traditional employment; much more so, if we take into consideration the fact that Roma – especially in the countries under consideration –have a long tradition of selfemployment and entrepreneurship and still many carry out crafts, trading and artistic activities. According to FRA “in southern and western EU Member States, such as Spain and Greece, a long tradition in trading, crafts and seasonal work is still visible in the high proportion of self-employment”, contrary to the cases of central and eastern Europe in which the communist patterns of full employment in many large-scale state owned or collective enterprises, led to the oblivion of this tradition.RESULTSThe main primary result is that young Roma may find an alternative viable way to social and economic integration, that of entrepreneurship. Also:• promotion of entrepreneurship education in Europe, especially for vulnerable social groups.• promotion of an inter-agency and inter-discipline approach to address specific challenges for socially marginalized groups.• creation and development of innovative approaches to support a specific target group which is normally recipient of negative stereotypes and behaviors.• development of specific methodologies and tools to enhance social inclusion and cohesion,by combating existing inequalities among European citizens. Apart from these long term expected results, there is a series of subsequent results which areexpected to occur in terms of project outputs and deliverables. These expected results are:1. Entrepreneurship Vocational Training Curriculum2. Trainers ´Resource Pack3. Mentoring Protocol4. A Book with collaborative work methodologies.These results, expected to occur during the project implementation phase and after itscompletion, promote the innovative aspects of the project as well as its broad Europeandimension, hoping to bring a permanent change in the lives of all the people who will bedirectly or indirectly involved in it