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Lets get down to inclusion
Lets get down to inclusion
Start date: Aug 1, 2014,
End date: Mar 31, 2015
PROJECT
FINISHED
Our project will bring together 6 organizations that work with people with mental disabilities and/or Down syndrome, in Bant, the Netherlands. We chose this topic because there are very few Erasmus+ (before Youth in Action) projects in this field and youth workers need more knowledge about the opportunities they have and to share experience on the subject from different countries.
The main focus of the activities during the project will be the sharing and learning about the different situations in different countries and learning about opportunities and active European citizenship. The expected result will be to create network of organizations for people with mental disabilities and to bring ideas for projects they can organize themselves, at a local or European level.
there will be 6 countries involved: the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and Italy. each partner will send four people with mental disabilitiites and two personal assistants/helpers/group leaders, this is 36, on top of that we have two main group leaders and one facilitator from the netherlands because this is a special project, so we need a special approach. We selected and will select all participants that are comparable in their level of education and thinking and emotional level, because for them it is very important to feel comfortable in the whole group and don't feel different, if they are "smarter" or "less smart" then the others, both of the situations would have a negative effect on theirselves and the others. the idea of "fitting in" the group is even more important in this case then in other projects.
Participants will talk about their situations, family, community, which are the opportunities they have (work, hobbies), and also the limits and the problems they encounter, their hopes, wishes and expectations. After this, they can learn more about each other and compare their situations with the similar ones, from other countries and see what can be done more or changed.
We plan to organize funny activities, energizers, team-buildings, role plays for the participants, so that they get to know each other better, learn about new cultures and make new friends over the boarders.
After learning more in a non-formal way about the problems and opportunities they have, they can think about the projects and activities they can organize themselves.
We realize we are working with disabled people so we need more time for explaining, translating, understanding and relaxing after the activities, because it needs more pressure and effort from the participants, and we adapted our program for this.