Project New methods for inclusion is a strategic partnership between three NGO's: Association of the deaf and hard of hearing of the city of Zagreb from Croatia, Centrul pentru Recuperare,Reabilitare si Educatie Speciala from Romana and Baltic Regional Fund from Latvia, that work with youngsters with fewer opportunities. It was created according to need analyses that has shown that the main reason for excluding youth with special needs from society are the communication barriers. Therefore, through activities of this project and creation of manual 'Learn how to communicate, learn how to include', we wish to enable overcoming of those barriers. This strategic partnership will be implemented with following objectives: The overall objective - Establish a European dimension in the work of our organization, as well as partnerships among organizations working with young people with fewer opportunities and create a informal network of organizations that include in their work young people with fewer opportunities. Specific objective -improve the skills of youth work, and develop new methods for working with youngsters with fewer opportunities, especially those with communication barriers, in order to strengthen the capacity of participating organizations; -increase the social capital of hearing impaired people and reduce prejudices in the local community towards the integration of people with disabilities -create a manual that will contain new non-formal learning methods for working with young people with communication difficulties and possible ways of overcoming communication barriers -provide better planning and preparation of projects and exchange of best practice between our organizations. The project is designed as an equal partnership between three organizations in order to strengthen mutual cooperation, to develop European dimension of our organizations and to exchange good practice examples which will lead to strengthening community's social capital. Participant will be youth workers and youngsters from our organizations; while the indirect beneficiaries will be youth workers from all over Europe and young people with communication difficulties. Intellectual output of this partnership, the book and DVD 'Learn how to communicate, learn how to include'', will serve as an unique manual for working with young people with communication difficulties, but also for working with youngsters that are facing communication barriers and therefore aren't included in the society enough. Strategic partnership activities will be held in Latvia, Romania and Croatia, but the impact of this project will be much wider, and it will involve youngsters and youth workers from all over Europe and beyond. Dissemination of the results of this project will enable long-term impact and sustainability since other organizations, not just in these two countries, but all over Europe, will benefit from intellectual output and be able to provide in their communities activities that will be follow-up of this project. This strategic partnership will last for twenty months.
The New methods for inclusion project is a strategical partnership between several civil society organizations: Association of the deaf and hard of hearing of the city of Zagreb from Croatia, Centrul pentru Recuperare, Reabilitare si Educatie Speciala from Romania and Baltic Regional Fund from Latvia, all of which are actively involved in work with youth with fewer opportunities. The Project was created after an extensive analysis about the needs of the society in general which showed that communication barriers are the main causes of the exclusion of the youth with fewer opportunities from the society. With this Project, we were able to overcome the aforementioned barriers through various activities and production of the “Learn how to communicate, learn to include” manual. Strategic partnership achieved following goals: General goals: our organizations achieved a European dimension in their perspective fields of work partnership between organizations that work with youth with fewer opportunities has been strengthened base of informal network of the organizations that include youth with fewer opportunities into their work has been developed Specific goals: work skills regarding working with youth with fewer opportunities have been improved as well as developing new methods of work with youth with fewer opportunities (especially those with communication barriers social capital of deaf and hard of hearing persons has been increased while reducing the prejudice of the local community towards their inclusion in the society Manual “Learn how to communicate, learn how to include” has been made, containing new non-formal methods of work with youth with communication barriers and ways of overcoming mentioned barriers better planning and development of the projects has been enabled as well as exchange of good practices between our organizations Project developed equal cooperation between our three organizations and, in that way, empowered their mutual cooperation, development of the European dimension of our organizations and exchange of good practise examples, all of which led to the strengthening of the social capital of the community. Participants of this Project were persons that work with youth as well as young persons from our organizations; while indirect users were persons that work with youth across Europe and youth with communication barriers. Intellectual output of this partnership, the “Learn how to communicate, learn how to include” manual and DVD was distributed to elementary and high schools, non-profit organizations and other institutions that work with youth. Methods that the Manual contains have already been used in several EU projects, on workshops in schools and local workshops. Manual will be used in the future as a unique material for work with youth with communication difficulties and other youth that are not integrated in the society. The partnership activities were held in Latvia, Romania and Croatia, while the overall effect is much wider and has already included both youth with fewer opportunities as well as youth workers from all over Europe and beyond. By expanding the results of the Project, long term effect and sustainability has and will be enabled because other organizations across the Europe and beyond, apart from the three partnership countries, will have a huge benefit from the intellectual outcome of this Project and will be able to conduct the activities that are a follow-up of this cooperation. Expansion has already begun and will continue on a monthly basis by being involved in the projects and through the distribution of the Manual to the organizations from Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey and Romania, as well as introducing (and distributing) it to the schools.