One in six people in the EU has a disability, representing 80 million people who as a result can be prevented from fully and equally participating in society and contributing to the economy. In 2006, the U.N. published the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability. This universal, legally binding standard recognises that every person must be empowered to participate in society and live life to their fullest potential. The publication of the Council of Europe’s Disability Action Plan, the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020, The Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the EU Convention on Human Rights also give a framework for this project. A recently published study on 'Culture, Cities and Identity in Europe” (2016) by the EESC recognises that culture is a tool for integration and inclusiveness for people who have "special needs". Our strategic partnership has identified a significant gap in adult arts education and cultural opportunity which impacts on the rights of EU citizens. The consortium is made up of six partners from four European Countries all of whom bring a complementary skill set essential to the delivery of this project, most of whom have significant experience of delivering European Project work. Our target group is adult learners with a disability who are missing out on fully participating in society through a lack of access to meaningful arts education opportunities. Stakeholders include project partners, persons with a disability (PWD) arts education providers, disability service providers and cultural centres across the EU. The Project takes place over 24 months, with 5 Transnational Meetings, 2 multiplier events and one Teacher/Training Learning (TTL) event resulting in 5 distinct outputs. Our aim is to innovate & implement joint initiatives with PWD, promoting cooperation, peer learning and exchanges of experience at a European level, focusing on the horizontal priority of social inclusion for adult learners with a disability. It also prioritises extending and developing educators' competences and will improve and extend the supply of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of the individual. This project will develop innovative outputs to support all stakeholders build a more integrated, inclusive Europe. It will improve & increase awareness of obligations, rights, policy, law & practice. It will address the identified gaps by improving access to education and connecting learners with more opportunities. It will address these priorities in three key areas: 1) Information & Research: This will be done through the collation of general text and accessible information on European policy, law, frameworks and examples of good practice on inclusive arts education at an EU level. This will result in the development of Good Practice Guidelines for arts organisations, arts educators, cultural centres and service providers. Signatories to these guidelines will be acknowledged with an "accreditation logo". The accreditation process will be overseen by three of our partner organisations post project completion. 2) Publication & Dissemination This will be done through the population and development of a newly created Knowledge Centre on Inclusive Arts in the D-Lot platform (www.dlot.eu) which is an existing accessible platform that is maintained by EASPD, the dissemination of Good Practice Guidelines through D-Lot and other existing networks and the development of an EASY READ TOOLKIT to support access and engagement of PWD. 3) Innovation & Participation This will be done through the development of an EASY READ DIGITAL APPLICATION which will support the connection between persons with a disability (PWD), educators, arts organisations, service providers and cultural centres. This will help bridge the gap between education and employment. Our goal is to help member states reinforce anti-discriminatory and human rights measures, to resource and encourage service providers to meet their cultural accessibility obligations, to enable active participation of EU citizens, to empower PWDs on exercising their cultural rights and to foster an accessible community of stakeholders that will continue to further these aims beyond the lifetime of the project. This project will lead to improved opportunities for adult learners with disabilities, improved diversity of those engaging with arts education leading to further diversity and opportunity in the workplace. The project is an innovative, transversal and integrated approach to addressing social inclusion, enhancing access, participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners.
One in six people in the EU has a disability, representing 80 million people who, as a result are often prevented from fully and equally participating in society and contributing to the economy. In 2006, the U.N. published the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability (UNCRPD). This universal, legally binding standard recognised that every person must be empowered to participate in society and live life to their fullest potential. This was the ethos that drove this project from its conception right through to its completion. A recently published study on 'Culture, Cities and Identity in Europe” (2016) by the EESC recognises that culture is a tool for integration and inclusiveness for people who have "special needs". The partners that came together to drive this project are all exemplars in their own countries for taking actions to ensure that people with disabilities (PWD) are given the opportunities to explore and fulfill their potential in the arts. They all share the vision that the arts is an important means of inclusion and expression for people with disabilities. The Council of Europe’s Disability Action Plan, the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020, The Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the EU Convention on Human Rights also gave a framework for this project. The consortium was made up of six partners from four European Countries all of whom brought a complementary skill set that was essential to the delivery of this project, most of whom also had significant experience in delivering European Project work. The organisations these partners came from were EASPD, ENCC, L’ADAPT, Scuolo Viva and CIT. The Project took place over 24 months, with 5 Transnational Meetings, 2 multiplier events and one Teacher/Training Learning (TTL) event resulting in 4 outputs. At the time of application we had proposed to complete 5 outputs, however one of these was not approved. Our aim was to innovate and implement joint initiatives with PWD, promoting cooperation, peer learning and exchanges of experience at a European level, with a focus on the horizontal priority of social inclusion for adult learners with a disability. It also prioritised extending and developing educators' competences and improved and extended the supply of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of the individual. This project developed innovative outputs to support all stakeholders to develop a more integrated, inclusive Europe. The project has achieved its objectives of improving and increasing awareness of obligations, rights, policy, law and practice. It addressed the identified gaps by improving access to education and connecting learners with more opportunities. The project addressed these priorities in three key areas: 1) Information and Research: This was done through the collation of general text and accessible information on European policy, law, frameworks and examples of good practice on inclusive arts education at an EU level (3.2 IO2 Development of good practices Guidelines). This resulted in the development of Good Practice Guidelines for arts organisations, arts educators, cultural centres and service providers. Signatories to these guidelines were acknowledged with an "accreditation logo" (1.1.2 CIAE Certification). The accreditation process was overseen by three of our partner organisations post project completion. 2) Publication and Dissemination This was done through the population and development of a newly created Knowledge Centre on Inclusive Arts in the D-Lot platform (3.3 IO3 Development of Knowledge Centre) which was a pre-existing accessible platform that is maintained by EASPD, the dissemination of Good Practice Guidelines through D-Lot and other existing networks and the development of an EASY READ TOOLKIT to support access and engagement of PWD. 3) Innovation and Participation This was done through the development of the EASY READ Toolkit (3.4 IO4 Development of Easy Read Toolkit) which supported the connection between PWD, educators, arts organisations, service providers and cultural centres. This helped bridge the gap between education and employment. This project led to improved opportunities for adult learners with disabilities, improved diversity of those engaging with arts education leading to further diversity and opportunity in the workplace. The project was an innovative, transversal and integrated approach to addressing social inclusion, enhancing access, participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners.