The ACT-ABLE Project - drama education lab for young people with disabilities is a strategic partnership supporting innovations of the school sector, this partnership is composed of Fondazione Spazio Reale, being the applicant, Soccorso Clown (Italy), Fondazione Toscana Spettacolo (Italy), University of Usak (Turkey) and Residui Teatro (Spain). The project wants to favour the educative inclusion of students with intellective disabilities through inclusive methods such as theatre, with innovative methodologies such as physical comedy and visual theatre, storytelling, dance-theater and vocalism as instruments of personal potential, and enhancing their learning abilities. This Project starts from multi-yearly experience of the concerned partners based on the idea that guarantees the actual function of the right to study and training, is one of the main factors that mainly touches the world of the disabled. As this is an important condition to the aim of their complete integration and inclusion in a social and working life. It is intended for children and youths with intellectual disability, the age range aimed at this educational cannot be decided with chronological strictness, both for the type of disability and for the variables that coincide on the advantageous participation to the proposed course. Generally, the project is aimed at students within the range of first and second grades of the secondary school. The project includes: - Five days training course for the staff to share their own methods of inclusive theatre and activate a common method to use during the project. - Drawing European guidelines which contain the methodology to use so as to start these inclusive theatre courses based on physical comedy and visual theatre in Italy, Turkey and Spain. - The realisation of these inclusive theatre courses taught the methodology of the physical comedy and of the visual theatre, destined to 24 youths with disabilities within the age of 11 and 15 in Italy; 10 youths from 12 to 24 in Turkey and 16 youths between 11 and 18 in Spain. - The creation of the theatrical company ACT-ABLE, made up of actors/mentors and the youths that have participated in the inclusive theatrical pathways held in Italy, as an example and inspiration for the birth of other mixed theatrical companies at a European level. - Of the commune conclusive document based on the results obtained during these courses and which will give life to “ACT-ABLE method: good methodological ways of inclusive theatre”. Through these activities the project intends: to improve the learning capacity of young people, help the scholastic institution with a new and inclusive offer, with an exchange of good ways between mentors and European organizations that use these inclusive theatrical methods; form professionals and make aware the stakeholders and the local communities through these artistically inclusive events.
The ACT-ABLE Project aimed to increase knowledge and awareness about inclusive education in order to: - Improve the learning abilities of young people with special needs for enhancing their personal development, their intellectual abilities, their interpersonal relationships; - Support national educational institutions in offering specific training pathways in the field of theatre-therapy, aimed at students with mental and psychic disabilities of various kinds (autistic syndromes, mental retardation, learning disorders, Down's syndrome, etc.); - Realise an exchange of good practices between European trainers and organisations which use drama education; - Train professionals able to operate in different national and European contexts, by enhancing the results obtained on therapeutic and training level and by disseminating the relative theories and intervention methodologies; - Raise awareness among stakeholders and local communities through inclusive artistic events. The collaborative approach made it possible to achieve these objectives, presented in the ACT-ABLE Guidelines and Method.
The ACT-ABLE Project - drama education lab for young people with disabilities was a strategic partnership to support innovation in the school sector. The partnership was composed of Spazio Reale Formazione as lead partner (Italy), Soccorso Clown (Italy), Fondazione Toscana Spettacolo (Italy), University of Usak (Turkey) and Residui Teatro (Spain). The project aimed at fostering the educational inclusion of pupils with intellectual disabilities through inclusive theatrical methods, with innovative methodologies such as physical comedy and visual theatre, storytelling, dance-theatre and vocality as tools for personal empowerment and improvement of learning skills. The project was born from the many years of experience of the partners involved, based on the idea that guaranteeing the effective exercise of the right to study and training is one of the points that most affect the world of people with disabilities, as an essential condition for their complete integration and inclusion in social and working life. The target groups were young people with intellectual disabilities: a total of 12 young people in Italy, 17 in Turkey and 18 in Spain were involved.