PURPOSE: Despite the prevalence of 15% of youth having one or more disabilities in our general population, hardly any youth is aware how to interact and communicate with their young peers with disabilities. Even the basic principles of barrier free communication are hardly known. Young people with disabilities want people to know more about their feelings, and want to communicate, in order also for their peers to gain a better understanding of disabilities, also in adult life. EU Disability Matters launch package (UK) stated that 25% of Britons do not feel confident communicating with a child with disabilities. NEEDS: (Young) people with disabilities encounter many different forms of attitudinal barriers that hamper a communication with mutual respect: • Inferiority: Because a person may be impaired in one of life's major functions, some people believe that the individual is a "second-class citizen." However, most people with disabilities have “compensating skills”. • Pity: People feel sorry for the person with a disability, which tends to lead to patronising attitudes. People with disabilities generally don't want pity and charity, just equal opportunity and be part of their youth peers community. • Hero worship: Most people with disabilities do not want accolades for performing day-to-day tasks. • Ignorance: People with disabilities are often dismissed as incapable of accomplishing a task without the opportunity to display their skills. • The Spread Effect: People assume that an individual's disability negatively affects other senses, abilities or personality traits, or that the total person is impaired. • Stereotypes: The other side of the spread effect is the positive and negative generalisations people form about disabilities. Aside from diminishing the individual and his or her abilities, such prejudice can set too high or too low a standard for individuals who are merely human. • Backlash: Many people believe individuals with disabilities are given unfair advantages, however they do not get special privileges rather just equal opportunities. • Denial: Many disabilities are "hidden," such as learning disabilities, psychiatric disabilities, epilepsy, arthritis and heart conditions. People tend to believe these are not bona fide disabilities needing “accommodation”. • Fear: Many people are afraid that they will "do or say the wrong thing" around someone with a disability. They therefore avert their own discomfort by avoiding the individual with a disability. Making youth aware of these very basic aspects in interaction with a peer with disabilities is a first step in solving the problem, while in a next step barriers need to be broken down by applying proper and accessible interaction/communication methods. These 2 steps are at the core of the project, aiming to impact young people, thus investing in the future, and providing the proper basis for spill over effects into society, and into the working environment. The project wants to help youth communities increase their understanding of disabilities and reduce the fear of approaching or being approached by an individual with disabilities, by applying the peer support model. TARGET GROUPS: - Youth workers and leaders - Student leaders - Disability youth organisations responsibles BENEFICIARIES: - Youth volunteers, youth organisation members - Student bodies/Youth council members - Youth with disabilities organisations and informal youth communities - Youth NGOs - Policy makers - EU Disability/Youth related organisations The project will therefore create the following open educational resources as INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS (languages EN, BG, NL & DE): IO1: Guide for youth workers on inclusive communication youth awareness campaign IO2: Handbook "ABC to inclusive communication with my peers with disabilities" IO3: Inclusive communication peer support hub EXPECTED IMPACT: On youth community: - Develop a greater understanding of the definition of disability - Help them recognise and overcome any assumptions they may have about people with disabilities and examine attitudes towards disability On youth workers/leaders: - Promote a greater awareness of the effects of inclusive communication among youth community and in the society - Provide guidance on a variety of disabilities to enable youth to understand how this impacts on a person’s day-to-day life - Help them to identify the potential barriers of disabled learners in education The proposal is supporting also the priorities of Council Resolution on a renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018) - EU Youth Strategy. PARTNERSHIP: The project consortium brings together 4 partners from 4 EU countries (Bulgaria, Belgium, Austria and United Kingdom) which are including national umbrella representative disability body (P1), organisations working with youth with disabilities (P3 & P4) and EU counseling body on inclusive practices and advises for youth (P2).
ACCESS INTERACT project was implemented in the period 1/09/2017 - 31/08/2019 in partnership among four organizations from Bulgaria, Austria, United Kingdom and Belgium. The partners were selected on the basis of their experience, expertise and achievements in the field of social inclusion and work with youth communities, as well as their capability to contribute with specialized knowledge and inputs which to be included in the intellectual outputs of the project. Coordinator was NARHU, P2 was PhoenixKM, P3 Vienna Assocation of Education Volunteers (VAEV), P4 David Banes Access and Inclusion Services. ACCESSINTERACT project has set the following main goals: - to promote the inclusion and employability of young people with fewer opportunities (including those with disabilities); - to encourage intercultural dialogue, the acquisition of new knowledge and to enhance the understanding and acceptance of diversity in society; - to assist youth workers in developing and sharing effective methods of inclusion for marginalized young people, including refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, as well as prevention of racism and intolerance among young people; - to promote diversity, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue; sharing common values such as freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights; - to strengthen the initiation to solve socially significant problems. Shortly before the start of the project, our preliminary findings showed that despite the fact that about 15% of young people have one or more disabilities, the majority of youth without disabilities do not know how to interact and communicate effectively with their disadvantaged peers. This impedes the natural communication within the social environment. Young people with disabilities also face many barriers that make communication challenging. The most common are regret, ignorance, stereotypes and prejudices, fear, isolation, rejection and other. The materials developed within the ACCESSINTERACT project were intended to help overcome these barriers and create more favorable conditions for interaction between people in youth communities. A sought after effect of the project was to break stereotypes and raise awareness among young people about the specific aspects of disabilities and how they affect communication and interaction in the community. The results of the project were addressed to the following target groups of the ACCESSINTERACT project: - Youth workers and leaders; - Student Leaders; - Student organizations and councils; - Heads of youth organizations; - Representatives of youth organizations of and for people with disabilities. Within the project, three intellectual outcomes have been developed that currently can be used together as a suite of complementary interactive training materials or individually as standalone training material on a specific topic. IO1: A Guide for Youth Workers on establishing an inclusive communication awareness campaign IO2: Handbook “An ABC to inclusive communication with my peers with disabilities” IO3: Inclusive communication peer support hub In order to provide easy and quick access to intellectual results and to maximize the promotion of project activities, a multilingual website www.accessinteract.eu was launched at the outset of the project. In the implementation of the project, it was actively used as a powerful tool for disseminating information and involving target groups and beneficiaries. In the period 01/12/18 - 30/06/19, the four partners piloted the developed IOs with young people who are leaders, volunteers or youth workers in various formal and informal associations and clubs. As a result of the active use of the training materials and communication portal, young people were able to develop practical skills for successful interaction and effective communication with peers with disabilities. The youth leaders, as well as their colleagues, received specific guidelines for planning and conducting public awareness campaigns on disability and other socially relevant issues related to equality and social inclusion. The youth were prepared not to act upon their own assumptions, but to use specific knowledge and guidance to make communication respectful and inclusive to all.