European Prisoners Entrepreneurship Program
What is EPEP?
The European Prisoner Entrepreneurship Program (EPEP) helps inmates and ex-offenders to reintegrate into society. In the face of high recidivism rates of prisoners in Europe, EPEP facilitates their labour market reintegration through a training on entrepreneurship and personal development: to help them start a business but also regain self-confidence. The EPEP e-learning platform will be available from 2020 for ex-offenders and trainers of organisations supporting inmates and ex-offenders. Funded by the EU’s Erasmus+ Program, the EPEP consortium brings together NGOs, higher education institutions and training providers from Italy, Belgium and France to jointly design the training.
News
The state of the art of prison entrepreneurship programs in Europe
Most employers do not wish to employ people with a criminal record, which is obviously a major obstacle to the financial autonomy of former prisoners. This is the main reason why recidivism rates are high across Europe, which is not only a waste of human talent, but...
read moreMultiplier Events
The EPEP dissemination campaign has considered the opportunities to raise awareness amongst civil community and NGOs involved in former inmates’ reintegration. Four multiplier events have been carried out to promote the European Prisoners Entrepreneurship Program...
read moreThe first edition of the EPEP course is going to start.
Monday, March the 1st, the Italian participants will attend their first class delivered by Infor Elea. Download the flyer here.
read moreTeam
INFOR ELEA is an Italian training agency, one of the educational leaders in the Piemonte region. It brings together around 250 enterprises, both public and private, proposes a wide range of trainings to more than 2 500 students per year. As a coordinator of the project EPEP, INFOR ELEA brings its expertise on company management, (prison) entrepreneurship, as well as in setting up and managing European projects.
The University of Torino (UNITO) is the sixth biggest and one of the oldest universities in Italy. UNITO hosts over 74 000 students and offers more than 130 curricula. It supports cultural interaction, scientific research, social integration and development. Within the EPEP project, UNITO provides its knowledge on the target groups, the methodology and the content of the course.
Located in Huy and Waremme-Belgium, IPEPS, the Provincial Institute for Social Advancement provides cutting-edge training in a wide variety of fields including Prisoner Entrepreneurship Programs. IPEPS has several years of experience teaching basic entrepreneurship courses within prisons and collaborating with prison authorities.
Founded in 1817, the University of Liege (ULiege) is one of the three main universities of the French speaking Community in Belgium. ULiege welcomes 24 000 students, 23% of which are international, and has over 1 500 international agreements in the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme. Supported by a vibrant entrepreneurship department and an incubator launched in 2014, ULiege contributed methodologically and participates in designing the courses for the EPEP project.
Justice Deuxième Chance (J2C) is a French association that fights against recidivism by supporting employment for ex-inmates. Since 2017, J2C provides trainings on job searching techniques in prisons. By working with prisoners and ex-offenders day by day, J2C offers an insight into the reality of prisoners’ and ex-offenders’ lives, their daily constraints and ambitions.
The “Institut de préparation à l’admnistration et à la gestion” (IPAG) is listed as the third French business school in the Shanghai Ranking. IPAG hosts 3 000 students each year. Its curricula are built on an ambitious research policy and put forward fieldwork experience through innovative pedagogy. Relying on its teaching methods, IPAG provides academic knowledge on the target groups and takes part in the design of the EPEP courses.
Euroquality is a French company specialised in setting up and managing European projects. Euroquality supports technological and methodological innovation within SMEs and provides policy evaluation and economic studies. Web development and in particular in e-learning platforms are also part of their expertise. Thus, within the EPEP project, Euroquality is in charge of developing the e-platform for inmates and ex-offenders.
The EPEP Flyer is available here.