Availability of culture for the disabled continues to be one of the crucial, unsolved issues. This is of particular importance in the developing countries, where all sorts of access amenities are still a rarity. There is no strategy in place the objective of which would be to improve access to the resources of culture and cultural objects to the disabled. Incidental events are unable to fill the gap, despite being so precious. The project is targeted at intensifying and expanding the range of initiatives which limit the obstacles in access to culture as well as promoting the need of participation in it. The disabled do not participate in generally accessible events not because it is unworkable. Both in Poland and in many countries of the European Union: cinemas, theatres or other cultural life centres still remain unadjusted to their needs. There are no screenings containing audio description for the blind, nor subtitles for the deaf while architectural obstacles, frequently insurmountable, further contribute to the hindered access to artistic events. Inclusion into culture of disabled recipients who are socially “excluded” is a great challenge which may only be faced by a well-trained personnel. The key task of the project is to promote accessibility through training and support for the personnel of cultural institutions which will apply the obtained skills and solutions in order to eliminate the obstacles for the disabled. The project “Be able to meet” will focus on specific tasks: -Discovering the specificity of individual types of disability as well as possibilities of adjusting art to the needs of a different sensory reception -Introducing educational programmes enabling realization of the idea of broad access to culture and art through liquidating architectural, cognitive, mental and financial barriers, facilitating through this an active participation in art for persons with sight, hearing and motion dysfunctions as well as for the disabled. Direct target group for the carried out actions will be the persons employed in: culture centres, theatres, museums, cinemas -professionals - employees of culture who realize projects with the disabled on an occasional basis. The project will offer trainings and innovative support in identifying the needs of cultural institutions in the scope of servicing the disabled guests suffering from various dysfunctions. -amateurs-volunteers, person who support institutions of culture at an amateur level and who wish to participate in actions towards social integration and fight against social exclusion. The project will be indirectly targeted at: -directors, managers of cultural institutions. Both cinemas, theatres, culture centres, exhibition galleries, libraries etc. will be able to find adequate solutions for the preparation of events for the disabled and obtain knowledge on the necessary equipment with similar EU institutions. -Public administration institutions the task of which is to undertake initiatives in order to improve the quality of life of persons with specific needs as well as prevent their social exclusion and discrimination. The project will elaborate adequate attitudes towards the disabled in everyday work with them which will be developed and implemented thanks to project activities. Participants will be comprehensively prepared to work with the disabled and increasing their qualifications will enable the use of their skills in order to create the possibility of training the employees of other institutes of culture. “Be able to meet” has detected the best models and practices applied in EU which will be used and developed by project partners with various experiences and backups. Joint work will trigger the appearance of a practical guidebook, containing updated and significant tools in work with the disabled. We have assumed that project actions contained within the guidebook will bring positive and long-term results on the local and European level. Participants will increase their qualifications and gain new skills during 3 workshops: in Poland, Romania and Spain. Poland - workshop entitled “Model cultural institutions”, Spain - “Audio description, Subtitles, Didu - method which include the blind and the deaf into cultural actions”, Romania - “User of art therapy and other methods in inclusion of persons with motion and mental disabilities. In total, the workshops will be participated by 15 persons, 5 from each country. The workshops will last 4 days. The key result will be the change of perspective within the target group, which will gain, among project activities, the skills and competencies on working with the disabled, preparing basic audio description, creating both substantive and architectural conditions for artistic and cultural development of persons excluded from culture. These intense training workshops will allow the participants to get closer to the world of needs and problems of the disabled person and, most importantly, possibilities of
Supporting people in acquiring and improving basic skills and key competences is the main priority of our project. The real need to improve conditions of accessibility of people with disabilities to culture is a determinant of a contemporary cultural institution. Educating cultural staff in broadly understood accessibility is a priority of the modern world. There are some solutions in Europe, but overall access to cultural institutions, theatres and museums for people with disabilities, including the deaf and blind, is very low. People comprehensively involved in the preparation of audio descriptions and subtitles are still rare in cultural institutions. That is why our project "Be able to meet" focused on supporting employees of cultural institutions in acquiring new competences, improving their qualifications and learning new skills. Through international workshops, participants gained new knowledge that they will be able to use not only in their institutions, in the implementation of events for people with disabilities, but also by training others. New skills will give both partners and beneficiaries a long-lasting effect, will allow them to implement and develop innovative solutions.
For many years we have been cooperating with people with disabilities, enabling them to actively participate in cultural and culture-forming activities. Disabled - a full-fledged creator and recipient of culture. We wanted to develop broadly understood accessibility: architectural, substantive and digital together with partners from Spain and Romania. First of all, because each of us has had different experiences. Joint work, workshops and exchange of experiences allowed us to deepen our knowledge and often to learn new techniques and study new opportunities in work with a person with a disability. The leader presented the principles of functioning of a "model cultural institution" with architectural, digital and substantive accessibility. Partner from Romania - the principles of art therapy and its importance in working with people with disabilities, while the partner from Spain the Didu method, subtitles and audio description. Participants of the workshops - employees of cultural institutions - acquired a new vision and knowledge that they will use in their institutions and thus deepened their professional competences, which will also enable them to train employees of other cultural institutions. The joint work resulted in the creation of a practical guidebook (manual) containing updated and important support tools in work with people with disabilities.