Differences Create No Distances is an Erasmus+ Youth multi-activity project, financed by the European Union and developed by Asociatia Babilon Travel.
The project aims to bring together visually impaired youngsters (VIP) and youth workers in order to enhance the social inclusion efforts of the young visually impaired and raise awareness about the needs and skills of the VIPs, enabling participants to develop communication techniques in order to promote inclusion, to improve confidence and self-empowerment, and to learn methods of working together in various situations. Non-formal tools and methods will be used, as well as sports and outdoor activities.
Partners: Highschool for Visual Impaired Cluj-Napoca (Romania)Projekte Vullnetare Nderkombetare (Albania)Ikkaido Inclusive Martial Arts (Ireland)Mreza za Dozivotno Ucenje (The Republic of North Macedonia) Polski Zwiazek Niewidomych (Poland)
The project will implement two main activities:
- A training course in Cluj-Napoca and Băișoara, Romania, between 18-24 th of October, 2020 which will bring together 25 youth workers, with and without disabilities, from the 5 partner countries
- A youth exchange in Durres Albania, between 17th-25th of April, 2021 which will be attended by 30 young people with and without disabilities, together with 5 youth workers, who also participated in the training course in Cluj-Napoca and who will have the opportunity to put into practice what they learned there.
Asociatia Babilon Travel
(Romania)
Mreza za Dozivotno Ucenje (The Republic of North Macedonia)
Projekte Vullnetare Nderkombetare (Albania)
Polski Zwiazek Niewidomych (Poland)
Highschool for Visual Impaired Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Ikkaido Inclusive Martial Arts (Ireland)
Spread Ability
Spread Ability, organised by Slovak NGO Youth for Equality, aimed to transform non-formal activities for individuals with different types of disabilities.
Thanks to experienced trainers from Slovakia (Martina Pitrovská) and Greece (Argyris Choulias), youth workers participating in the project learned about including young people with disabilities while running non-formal activities.
During intensive six-day training, participants created new non-formal activities, which they also implemented at Mokrohájska High School 1 in Bratislava on 7.11.2019. Through this experience, pupils had the opportunity to practice English and learn new skills, and our youth leaders got valuable practice and feedback on their activities.
During intensive six-day training, participants created new non-formal activities, which they also implemented at Mokrohájska High School 1 in Bratislava on 7.11.2019. Through this experience, pupils had the opportunity to practice English and learn new skills, and our youth leaders got valuable practice and feedback on their activities.
The overall output of the project is a Handbook with games and tips on how to work with young people with disabilities.
EVA-FEM
“I wanted to thank you with all my heart for what I experienced in this wonderful project. I think every person who was there, was special in creating the perfect package for a major change in my life.”
EVA-FEM has been designed to promote independence, competences and different skills of young females from the wider community. We aim to empower women who are disabled, or from other marginalised groups such as immigrant backgrounds.
Project activities are based on non-formal and informal education. They include self-defence, martial arts, sport and outdoor activities, as well as workshops around the topics of inclusion, equity, gender violence, gender discrimination, and the empowerment of women in general but specifically those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Workshops revolve around the topics of inclusion, mobility, technology, communication, IT tools, social media, leadership, coaching and empowerment.
“I am now home with a new version of myself. A much more improved version from both physical and spiritual points of view due to the martial arts. I’m much more confident. And because of Jim, a part of the difficult past that I had chasing me for so long, I managed to leave it behind in Greece.”
Participants can access free group or one-to-one support from a professional counsellor during daily Safe Space.
All the activities during the project are designed to get all of the people involved inclusively and to encourage the participation and motivation of all of them.
Participants grow a sense of their own identity, competences, value and strengths by exploring the self-confidence gained through self-defense tools and ultimately the exploration of the need to create a framework for a course of self-defense and empowerment which they themselves can go on to teach.
In Touch
In Touch is Ikkaido’s first Erasmus+ Exchange of Best Practice project.We will research external and internal tools, methodologies and resources, produce a Best Practice Report and identify deficits in education and provision.Using the partners’ vast knowledge and the collaboration on the Best Practice Report, we will design the framework of at least 5 inclusive KA2 Innovation projects to improve inclusion, empowerment, entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurship for youth with fewer opportunities, especially disability, in the next 24 months.We aim to build a long-term collaborative network of partners who have profound experience and knowledge of issues for young people with fewer opportunities, especially disabled people. Social inclusion is embedded at the heart of achieving the partners’ objectives.
EmployABLE
“At the start of EmployABLE, I was unemployed. Now I have a challenging job that I enjoy, and a bright future ahead of me”.
Disability negatively affects many areas of people’s lives including lack of access to public transport, equipment, education, sport/health and in the employment opportunities.
EmployABLE aims to empower young disabled participants by giving them a stronger sense of identity, competences and strengths. Participants improve their knowledge of different tools, technology, communication skills and ultimately explore more aspirational career opportunities.
“I have always suffered from depression, which has affected my ability to work in every job I’d had previously. The sense of community and safety, and the friendships I’ve made on this project have made me a happier person. It has opened my eyes to what life can be like when people work together and help each other”.
Evidence shows that psychosocial well-being is critical to the development of self-esteem and the development of competences in education and employment.
EmployABLE uses the iconic nature of martial arts to provide psychosocial well-being through regular sessions of physical activity to engage and empower people with disabilities.
Over the two-year life of the project, our partners learned all of the skills and competences to create a Festival of Martial Arts for people with disabilities.
BEAT IT!
The main objectives of BEAT IT! are as follows:
- To improve critical thinking skills
- To improve communication skills
- To improve competences in creativity in digital media
- To improve collaboration using digital tools
This inclusive project will give priority to people with the obstacle of fewer opportunities including young disabled people and people who have a lived experience of bullying, intolerance and prejudice in order to be able to fully address the issues of e-safety, the lack of digital literacy and appropriate use of social media amongst young people.This development of best practice in social media will help to reduce hate speech, cyberbullying and combat the rise of populism and extremism on the internet for young people with fewer opportunities both with and without internet access to social media platforms and within traditional communities.
Bullying Education Awareness and Tactics for Inclusion and Tolerance (BEAT IT!) is based on the knowledge, research and understandings gained from five previous Erasmus+ projects on inclusion.Young disabled and non-disabled people investigated the themes of communication, inclusion, integration and safety for young disabled and non-disabled people in traditional communities as well as the modern communities of social media. Whilst internet access provides great benefits in discovering things about the world, it also causes collateral issues in terms of e-safety.It was felt that digital literacy was poor. A recurring theme was that bullying and intolerance had become rife on social media not just for young people, but for everyone in society and this seemed to be reflected powerfully in traditional communities, creating intolerance, hate speech and prejudice especially against people with fewer opportunities as well as a rise in “fake news” and populism. It was thought that social media had had a significant role in the current shift from democratic liberalism to a rise in prejudice and right-wing extremism.
PRIMAE
Participation and Recreation through Inclusive Martial Arts Education and E-Learning (PRIMAE) will create an innovative digital platform that will provide e-learning in coach education and training to and for persons with a disability. The platform will empower and enable persons with a disability to develop as inclusive, person-centred martial arts coaches, providing an educational pathway to become
tutors and assessors of qualifications on the qualification frameworks of different countries in Europe. PRIMAE also aims to improve the knowledge, skills and competences (KSC) of coaches and tutors,
assessors and internal quality assurers in the field of education, training and employment, and especially for persons with a disability, at a world level. The addition of specialist inclusive modules will give the opportunity for users of the website resources to develop a degree of specialism in a key aspect of inclusive practice and disability
martial arts (such as wheelchair users, those with sensory impairments, or specific martial arts styles). PRIMAE will create active
inclusion through empowering the most disadvantaged people in society to fully participate in sport and physical activity (martial arts), education, training and employment, especially persons with a disability who face significant challenges to their integration.The principles of PRIMAE draw strongly from Hart’s Ladder of Participation. Applied to the social exclusion of persons with a disability, Hart’s Ladder shows that active participation means the full integration of persons with a disability including them in every aspect of an issue. Working in partnership as equals with non-disabled people is the most effective way to resolve the issues that persons with a disability may face. Persons with a disability have been involved in the development of the PRIMAE project from the outset. They will inform and participate in the creation of an e-learning platform which will be used to educate persons with a disability who are not ordinarily able to participate in formal education.