Aim of the myPart project is to enhance political participation of people with intellectual disabilities on the basis of Art 29, UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It states the right to political participation for all persons with disability. It requires ensuring that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others. People with intellectual disabilities still face many substantial limitations in practising their political rights. The reasons for this situation are various. They can be found in barriers like in accessible voting procedures or in a lack of appropriate and accessible materials. Another reason can be seen in the fact that people with intellectual disabilities in some European countries still are excluded from their political rights like voting or standing for election. This is very often the case when they are deprived of legal capacity (law’s recognition of the decision making ability). Education pathways of adult people with disabilities often were marked by the transition into segregated work and residential settings with a lack of possibilities to acquire knowledge in civic education. The most important requirement for political participation is to understand the role of oneself as a citizen in the governmental form of democracy. The Workshop for Civic education with its combined and interactive learning forms is tailor-made to meet the needs of the target group in order to gain knowledge concerning political processes, but also to make experiences as active citizens. Another objective of the project is a cultural change towards a participatory conception of politics on a local, regional, national and European level. There is a high need of cooperation between the political, civic and disability field in order to shape inclusive policies and practices. MyPart is giving an impulse toward this direction by establishing Civic Circles as a format where people with intellectual disabilities, politicians and people of the community come into dialogue and learn from each other. The Policy Recommendations that are developed within the myPart project are the appropriate measure to transfer the gained knowledge on the national and European level. Essential in the design of the entire myPart project is ensuring the voluntary participation of about 60 people with disabilities, who are actively involved in the development of all outcomes of the project. At the beginning of the project Cooperation Groups are established, in these groups people with disabilities and project partners will reflect regularly on all outcomes and initiatives of the project. The synopsis of the methodologic approaches chosen for the project addresses the challenge to meet the needs of the target group. Elements of these methodologies are theatre-pedagogic sequences, on-film offers, easy-to-read material, social and cooperative learning and experimental learning. The myPart project leads to the following results: myPart Workshops for Civic Education: A curriculum for workshops is developed in the partnership with support of the Cooperation Groups and their initial aim is to address the needs of people with disabilities concerning civic education. myPart Handbook: The handbook in easy-to-read is aimed to people with intellectual disabilities and is a supporting material and the core medium for the workshop that is directly handed out to the participants. myPart Video Clips: short clips are developed by the partnership in order to facilitate the contents of the workshops in an easy understandable way by artistic and visual means. myPart Policy Recommendations: The aim of the Policy Recommendations is to collect and provide information and recommendations about the civic participation of people with intellectual disabilities on local, regional, national and European level. The most expected impact on the target group is the acquisition of citizenship knowledge and of social and civic competences. People with intellectual disabilities will identify the connection between their own personal life and their participation in political opinion forming processes. These experiences will lead to a stronger commitment to democracy. Public authorities and politicians play also an active part in the project. In the reciprocal learning settings of civic circles the importance of political participation of people with disabilities is becoming evident. New forms of political participation and inclusion will be experienced and can be taken into usual political practise. The long term impact of myPart is that people with intellectual disabilities will participate in opinion forming processes more actively (visiting assemblies, sharing initiatives, voting, standing for election) Apart from that the interests and needs of people with intellectual disabilities are politically taken into account in local, regional and social spaces.
The main aim of the project was to enhance the political participation of people with intellectual disabilities. The project focused on two pillars: On the one hand it promoted political participation and citizenship for people with intellectual disabilities through tailor-made and accessible educational activities. On the other hand, it increased the awareness of society, policy makers, politicians about the rights of people with intellectual disabilities and the possibilities to better involve them in the political and public life. In the learning biographies of people with intellectual disabilities knowledge of democratic values, fundamental rights, active citizenship and their individual situation relating to political processes was often not imparted. To compensate this lack the project developed tailor-made educational measures: workshops, accessible information and further materials (videos) related to the educational activities. Another objective of the project was to initiate a change towards a participatory conception of politics and society. This was done by establishing Civic Circles, a format where people with intellectual disabilities, politicians, policy makers and people of the community came into dialogue.
Art. 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states the right to political participation for all persons with disability. This calls for people with disabilities to be able to participate effectively and fully in political and public life on an equal basis. It is the responsibility of a nation to ensure this. But still, people with intellectual disabilities face many substantial limitations in practising their political rights what can be attributed to various reasons: barriers like in accessible voting procedures or in a lack of appropriate and accessible materials and information. All this is systematically based. One very important requirement for political participation is to understand the role of oneself as a citizen in a democracy. Due to the education pathways of adult people with disabilities which were often marked by the transition into segregated work and residential settings with no possibilities to acquire knowledge in civic education, people with intellectual disabilities did not develop interest nor knowledge on the topic. To reduce this lack and to support the acquirement of understanding and interest on politics and civic participation was the core intention of the myPart project.