What do you think of when you first hear the word disability? Let’s admit the fact that we immediately feel sorry for the person the word is being used in reference to. What we visualise is probably someone in a wheelchair or someone who is mentally disabled and is not capable of carrying out routine tasks properly. Disability is an impairment of the mind or body that prevents a person to function in one of more major life activities. Disability affects 15-20% of every country's population: There are at least 650 million people with disabilities worldwide. The United Kingdom has the second highest prevalence of disability with 27.2% of the population having a long-standing health problem or disability. Considerable international evidence supports that students with a disability are bullied and harassed by other students without a disability, with students with learning disabilities more highly represented as victims. Bullying and harassment may come in the form of teasing, physical aggression, spreading rumours, social exclusion, taking belongings, imitating and being made fun of. Attending special classes, requiring extra help, being seen to be different, being treated differently by teachers or having a lack of social awareness can increase the risk of being bullied and harassment. Bullying is a problem of international significance for all students. Its impacts can include decreased academic performance, absenteeism, anxiety, depression, poor esteem, impaired concentration, self-harm and early school leaving as well. As the applicant organisation having in mind the facts we mentioned we decided to prepare this project with 6 partners to become organisations that foster positive attitudes towards disabled people. There are many small actions that we can all take to include people with disability in our community. Over time, many small actions undertaken by lots of people will lead to a more welcoming and inclusive community for people with disability. Our project: ''The Change Starts with us’’ intends to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and confidence to take personal and collective action to enhance the inclusion of people with disability in community life. The project is prepared to help children better understand what it means and how it feels to be a young person with a disability and gives students the opportunity to learn what is involved when someone has a disability and how they have to adapt, go to school, or work as independently as possible. The main objectives of the project are: - To encourage children to accept their peers with disabilities as people first and also to find ways to include everyone in school and after-school activities. -Increase the awareness and understanding of young people with disability issues and people with a disability living in their local communities. -Encourage schools to embrace disability awareness and inclusion as part of their core curriculum. The project will help to bridge the gap between children with and without disabilities and decrease the number of disabled early school leavers. -Improve the language and ICT skills of the participants -Combat discrimination, segregation, racism, bullying and violence; -Enhance participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners, reducing disparities in learning outcomes -Strengthening the international cooperation through sharing good teaching and learning practices -To prepare and deploy the education and training of professionals for equity, diversity and inclusion challenges in the learning environment - To encourage active citizenship and entrepreneurship, jointly carried out by 2 or more groups of young people from different countries -To facilitate the recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competencies acquired through formal, non-formal and informal learning. Another aim of our project is to highlight the role of NGOs, schools as catalysts for change by offering the students and community the opportunity of getting positive and favourable experience in learning. Our responsibility is not only emphasising the teaching and learning process but also doing our best on aspects like teamwork, socio-emotional development, respect and human rights. The focus is on the effective counteraction against the negative influences of the media on schools and beyond by increasing the awareness of all the participants. This project should be carried out transnationally because it will enable learners and staff to explore, understand, describe and compare lifestyles across Europe, it will provide some increased form of awareness concerning common preoccupations of European citizens about intergenerational issues. It will enhance European cooperation as partners involved will exchange and discuss common issues that will increase understanding and open-mindedness through co-operative working, transfer of good practices and a sense of personal well-being.
Through research, we found that disability affected 15-20% of the world's population. This amounted to approximately 650 million people. The United Kingdom had the second highest prevalence of disability with 27.2% of the population having a long-standing health problem or disability. We found considerable evidence that students with disabilities were bullied and harassed by their peers. Students with learning disabilities made up a large percentage of the statistics. Examples of the bullying and harassment came in the form of teasing, physical aggression, spreading rumours, social exclusion, taking belongings, imitating and making fun of students. Bullying is a problem of international significance for all students. Its impact can cause a decrease in academic performance or lead to absenteeism, anxiety, depression, poor esteem, impaired concentration, self-harm and early school leaving. The Change Starts With Us project was made up of 6 partners with the goal of becoming organisations that promote and foster positive attitudes towards people with disabilities. We believed that many small steps could be taken to help include people with disabilities in our communities. The concept was that over time, many small actions undertaken by lots of people would lead to a more welcoming and inclusive community for people with disabilities. We are pleased to see that our project ''The Change Starts with us’’ helped to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and confidence to take personal and collective action, helping enhance the inclusion of people with disabilities. The project helped participants better understand what it meant and how it felt to be a young person with a disability and gave students the opportunity to learn more about their daily lives, how they have to adapt to their environment, go to school or live independently. In total, there were 116 participants who took part in the Learning, Teaching and Training Activities, with a total number of 46 representatives attending Transnational Project Meetings. The participants who took part in the project LTTAs were made up of young people from a variety of backgrounds, both with and without disabilities. The main project objectives achieved include: - Children were encourage to accept their peers with disabilities as people first and find ways to include everyone in school and after-school activities. - Increased the awareness and understanding of young people with disabilities living within their local communities - Encouraged schools to embrace disability awareness and inclusion as part of their core curriculum. - Helped to bridge the gap between children with and without disabilities to decrease the number of early school leavers amongst pupils/students with disabilities - Improved language and ICT skills of participants - Challenged discrimination, segregation, racism, bullying and violence - Enhanced participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners, helping to reduce disparities in learning outcomes - Strengthened the international cooperation through sharing good teaching and learning practices - Prepared and deployed the education and training of professionals for equity, diversity and inclusion challenges in the learning environment - Encouraged active citizenship and entrepreneurship - Facilitated the recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competencies acquired through formal, non-formal and informal learning The project also highlighted the role of NGOs, local organisations and schools as a catalysts for change by offering the students and their communities the opportunity to engage in a positive and favourable experience in learning. The focus was on developing effective tools used to fight against the potentially negative influences of the media on schools and beyond by increasing the awareness of all participants. Some of the resources created included: - Project Logo - Project website - Disability and Equality in Education Handbook - Anti-Discrimination Handbook - Disability Awareness Questionnaire 1st & 2nd - Teachers Guide - Disability History Museum - “The Change” E-book - e-Twinning page - Disabled people who have made a difference - Raising Awareness Blog - You Are Not Alone Brochure - Disability & The Environment Brochure The activities helped both learners and staff to explore, understand, describe and compare lifestyles across Europe. The project also enhanced European cooperation as partners exchanged knowledge and discussed common issues. This helped to improve open-mindedness through cooperation, transfer of good practices and a sense of personal well-being.