Public organization „Union of Disabled Social Enterprises“ is implementing the project „Improving competitiveness for business of disabled people“ together with partners from Latvia, in accordance with the Latvian-Lithuanian cross-border cooperation program in 2007-2013.

The main goal of this project is to enhance the competitiveness among social enterprises of disabled in the project area (the part of Lithuania and Latvia), which would result in a greater number of employed persons with disabilities. Target groups are social enterprises of disabled, persons with disabilities, governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations. The project will implement activities in order to investigate the situation of the disabled in Lithuania, the causes of unemployment, to develop proposals for greater integration of disabled persons in the labor market; as well as to explore and identify the economic sector, where persons according to the nature of their disabilities would have more opportunities to get a job. We will seek to change employers` attitudes towards disabled people by promoting the employment opportunities for disabled people, to increase motivation of disabled people, to promote cooperation between social partners, provide relevant and useful examples of people with disabilities to the public and intensify the recruitment of persons with disabilities in other possible ways.

In 2010 there were about 269,034 persons with various disabilities in Lithuania. 29% (79,650) of them were retirement age people with disabilities, 6% (16,002) were children, only 16% (44,034) persons with disabilities were working from 65% (173,381) of working age people, 49% (129,347) people with disabilities did not work anywhere. Currently, Lithuania has 90 social enterprises and more than 50% of the workforce consists of people with disabilities. The vast majority of social enterprises of disabled are located in the biggest cities of Lithuania, which is mostly populated by people with disabilities. Unfortunately, there are very few social enterprises of disabled and a large number of unemployed persons with disabilities in smaller cities.

The planned measures, which will be developed during the project:
- Website with database of disabled persons` CV `s.
- VISTA study - the collection of statistics, analysis and screening of prospects about people with disabilities, their employment and companies` potential to employ people with disabilities and presentations of possible means which could help to employ people with disabilities.
- A Catalogue „Good Practise Examples of Disabled People Work“ .
- A practical guide for organizations about procurement conditions and the possibilities to buy from social enterprises of disabled (PPS methodology).
- Call center. The main goal is to mediate in the recruitment of people with disabilities, communicating directly with potential employers.