Every human has the Right to get access to education. In order to make education as effective as possible, it is a basic requirement that people are taught in their mother tongue. Unlike people without hearing impairment, for whom there is a wide range of education, there are no options for deaf people to continue their education outside or additional to their job-related professional qualifications. Even in order to complete an apprenticeship, they are forced to consult a paid interpreter. In some cases, these are not even funded by the state, which is why Deaf people have to bear these high costs themselves in order to achieve education. Exept for schools for the Deaf, there are no institutions in Europe that offer people with Deafness a chance at adult education. The project "Developing Adult Education in cities and regions " aims to develop an educational concept for deaf adults that is sustainable within the cooperative central european institutions and in the future in an even broader way. In terms of their educational status, The Deaf community is very heterogeneous. In addition to extremely few deaf academics, the majority of the Deaf community is excluded from the educational landscape. There are many deaf illiterates and such deaf people who, after school education, have learned a simple applied profession and have not gained access to further education and and adult education. Due to the increasingly fast-paced world and the increasing digitalization, competencies in the handling of information are becoming more And more relevant. Deaf people lack basic knowledge in important fields such as History, Politics, Geography and many others. In everyday life, hearing people are constantly surrounded by radio, television and other forms of media that inform about news and current events. In Germany and many other european countries, however, there are enormous language barriers in the public media and access to Breaking News and general worldly knowledge is often not accessible for deaf People. They therefore do not understand the coherence between the informations, the handling of public media and the independent gathering of information remains strange and largely inaccessible. In order to improve this situation and promote educational commitment among the Deaf, they need good guidance from other Deaf people who act as teachers and devise pedagogical teaching for them. Within two years, the partnership associations will organise lessons for deaf members of their associations. Those who make their mark through a special commitment and learning potential during their participation in international learning events will be supported financially. Through the experience gained while participating in the international learning events, the beneficiaries can learn more from european values, cultures, history and politics. At the moment, there are only a few Deaf people within Germany who have completed a Teaching Degree. For this reason, voluntary, committed deaf people, who are aware of this problem and who want to make an improvement on this issue, are being employed to carry out the learning activities. Their work will increase civic commitment and volunteering within the deaf community. Seminars will be created for international project partners, in which they will interact with each other during learning events. However, it is not out of the question, that hearing experts might be invited for certain learning events on a special topic. In this case, sign language interpreters will be neccessary. The project holds an innovative approach that helps to achieve a far-reaching improvement in the standard of living for Deaf people in the field of adult education throughout Europe. The project aims to ensure the social participation of Deaf people and their inclusion. The educational concept, that ist being developed in the project will promote the movement of the Deaf getting full access to the boader society. This can only be achieved by ensuring high quality education.
This project was launched in order to elaborate an educational concept for deaf adults, which will be applied sustainably within the cooperating Central European institutions and to an even wider extent in the future. The great relevance of this project can be explained by the situation that many deaf people learn a simple applied profession after finishing their school education, but the access, offers and possibilities in the field of further and adult education for this target group in their own mother tongue are poor or even non-existent.
Our mission still: Education creates more knowledge, invigorates exchange and strengthens com-petencies. Everyone has the right to education. In order to acquire education in the best possible way, it is a basic requirement that people are taught in their mother tongue. Compared to people without hearing impairment, for whom there is a wide range of educational opportunities, the edu-cational opportunities available in sign language are very limited. This is especially important in the field of adult education, which for deaf people means an additional factor of compensation for lan-guage deprivation and educational failures, due to non-resource-oriented school systems for deaf children. Just over two years ago, on January 10, 2020, the Erasmus+ project "Adult Sign Language Education" started. Initiator was the Netzwerk für Gebärdensprache, Erwachsenenbildung und soziale Teilhabe e.V. (formerly Netzwerk der Gehörlosen Stadtverbände e.V.). Besides the two board members and also project coordinators, Rudolf Sailer and Christian Schönbeck, of the Ger-man initiation association NetGest, strategic partnerships in the Central European area could be established within the framework of the project. As project partners the regional association of the deaf Carinthia from Austria, Krajske centrum nepocujucich ANEPS Zilina from Slovakia, Doof & Jong Vlaanderen vzw from Belgium and the association of the deaf Ingolstadt and surroundings with sports department e.V. participated in the implementation and development of the project goals. In the two years since the beginning of the project, the project partners worked together on the set goals and strived for a sustainable and effective implementation of the same.