The proposed project will involve 5 participating countries across the EU and it is set to commence in September 2017 and end by August of 2020. The objective of this initiative is to create a set of modules which will assist persons of an intellectual disability to engage in independent living. This will be achieved by focusing on the current need to enhance communication, literacy and numeracy skills of persons with an intellectual disability so that they will have the means to be fully integrated within the social and economic national frameworks and also to be able to realize their inherent rights for independent living. By means of this project we will create 3 Modules focused on improving the communicative, literacy and numeracy skills for persons of an intellectual disability (i) living on their own; (ii) living with immediate or extended families; and (iii) living in residential/communal homes. The developed Modules will reflect the different needs of the mentioned categories of this project's target group. The activities of this project will be the following: 1) Research 2) Development of Modules 3) Pilot Activities 4) Multiplier Event Many researchers have shown that persons with an intellectual disability are very vulnerable and more likely to have a denser propensity per capita to be listed as low skilled or low qualified adults in a country's demographic employment analysis. However, no research to date has professionally and methodically analysed what type of services and subsidies - be they regional, national, transnational or indeed offered by civil society pressure groups - are presently available throughout the various EU countries for this population grouping. Thus, before the development of each Module, this project will constitute a research study (encompassing all the EU countries) which will seek to list and catalogue available subsidies, programmes and incentives in this field for the intellectually disabled. The research will also seek to establish if such available opportunities are being maximised by the grouping in question and, if not, why are there such shortfalls in the respective jurisdictions which will be monitored. Additionally, this research will inevitably underline harmonious and quasi-identical initiatives in this sector evident in the various EU countries and highlight initiatives and regulations which are available in some jurisdictions but not available in all the EU jurisdictions. Enhancing our target group's communication and other skills should be seen in the context of providing this group with the necessary tools for integration within society and for stratification betterment of the individuals in question. The project will also segment the various groupings related to persons with intellectual disabilities in order to fully pinpoint the specific needs of the target groups. Following the completion of each Module, each participating organisation will provide training to 20 person of an intellectual disability by using the methodology that would have been included in the particular Module. By means of this system the participating organisations will be testing the Modules and at the same time providing training to a total of 360 individual by the end of same project.
The project applied for by the Malta Federation of Organisations Persons with Disability (MFOPD) involved 5 other participating countries across the EU – Belgium, Finland, Greece, Northern Ireland and Sweden. This 3 year project started in September 2017 and should have ended in August 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a force majeur situation was in force with the project given an extension of another four months. The project ended in December 2020. The objective of this initiative was to create a set of modules to assist persons with an intellectual disability to engage in independent living. This objective was achieved. The project focused on the current need to enhance communication, literacy and numeracy skills of persons with an intellectual disability so as to have the means to be fully integrated within the social and economic national frameworks and also to be able to realize their inherent rights for independent living. This project created six (6) Modules focusing on improving the communicative, literacy and numeracy skills of persons with an intellectual disability (i) living on their own; (ii) living with immediate or extended families; and (iii) living in residential/communal homes. The developed Modules reflect the different needs of the mentioned categories of this project's target group. The Modules created by this project are the following: Household, Community, Health, Mobility, Work and Leisure. The activities of this project were: 1) The Research 2) The Development of the six Modules 3) The Pilot Activities (testing of the Modules) 4) The Multiplier Event Enhancing our target group's communication and other skills were seen throughout the project in the context of providing this group with the necessary tools for integration within society and for stratification betterment of the individuals in question. The project also segmented the various groupings related to persons with intellectual disabilities in order to fully pinpoint the specific needs of the target groups. Following the completion of the Modules, each participating organisation should have provided training to a specific number of persons with an intellectual disability by using the methodology included in each particular Module. By the end of this project, by means of this system, the participating organisations were to test the Modules and at the same time provide training to a total of 360 individuals with an intellectual impairment. The COVID-19 pandemic came unexpectedly and unfortunately left unexpected negative marks on the project. It came in force during the last year of the project, exactly at the testing stage of the Modules. The Modules created focus on the communication, literacy and numeracy skills of persons with an intellectual impairment and this vulnerable group was badly hit by the pandemic situation. They were isolated, constantly social distanced and kept within the walls of their homes / residences. This situation meant that the testing of the Modules could not happen according to and with the number of participants with an intellectual disability as asked for by the project by the respective partner organisations. Moreover, the multiplier event had to be organized and held virtually. All the project’s information and Modules can be accessed free of charge on the link https://www.mfopd.org/linc-life