Internationally disability has been on the political agenda since United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. As it can be traced from the policy papers that there is a wide acceptance on the importance of social inclusion of people with disabilities since it is still a challenge that many EU countries must address. Besides, according to data from OECD, EU and Turkey approximately 15% of the world's population is consist of people with disabilities. If we make it specific to our consortium, the numbers of people with disabilities are respectively in Greece is approximately 1.000.000, in Spain 3.8 million, in Turkey is approximately 4.9 million and in the UK 13.9 million. Various studies and projects on people with disabilities have shown us that disabilities have so far been represented from the aspects of their emotionally wellbeing, improving their employability, educational attainment, self esteem and self-efficacy, etc. All these motivations of improving their life standard are vital. However, through all these works it appears an important threshold in a disabled person’s life is missed such as the transition period of individual’s being discharged from hospital to life back at home where life is not the same as it was. Such period is as vital as a disabled person’s wellbeing and improved chance of employability. Moreover, it is the first step that in a way shapes the acquired disabled person’s wellbeing and employability in the long run. Therefore even though people with disabilities are on the agenda of policy makers, it does not fully reach its ideals. Our own experiences suggest that people who go through disability at an unexpected stage of their life, they are alone with their new circumstances. Because at this transition period they need kind of a guidance regarding where to start from or where to apply, how to set up a business or the current work and educational options provided in their local approximate..etc. to keep going in their daily life. Without some kind of guidance in their circumstances, the people can face a future of low income/poverty, social exclusion. It is true that when experiencing such a traumatic situation families are the first who support the person with acquired disability. Apart from the family support, there are some other institutions provided by law and NGOs which families can apply when they need. However, most of the family members are also objects of this traumatic experience and they are the ones who are also in need of guidance to overcome such a situation. Because in most cases they do not know how to access the information they need to help their family member with acquired disability. In these terms families are alone as well as their familiy member with acquired disability who go through such a trauma in the first hand. Therefore our project targets not only adults with acquired disabilities but also their close circles such as their families. To help people with acquired disabilities and their families to readjust social life with their new circumstances by guiding them to feel included in society and the workplace is an important issue which is shared by many countries. After primary discussions with our partners in Turkey, Scotland, Greece and Spain we found they too are experiencing the similar issues that we are. When discussing the subject of how to support people with acquired disability to readjust social life smoothly for social inclusion with our partners we came to a conclusion that we can develop and implement an online guide. As non of the consortium member countries have such a specific guide where our target group can reach the information immediately without even waiting on the line to wait someone to answer or by coincidence through their social network to answer their needs. With the online guide we aim to provide an environment to help our target group to readjust life by making life outside accessible as much as possible. Because even if there is information provided by the state or private organizations it is not easy to navigate and most of the time these institutions are not connected to each other in terms of the services they provide. Through the online guide we will also be able to help them rediscover their own strengths and abilities as well as keeping their civic relationship with the state institutions. Being be able to find their way whether they look for their rights as a citizen or to set up a business or take up a vocational trade or further educational qualification is one of the main methods of going from being socially excluded to readjusted in their society. In this regard this project will contribute to one of the targets of Europe 2020 Strategy for social inclusion of adults with disabilities.
The project aims to promote the social inclusion of people with acquired disabilities and their families/caregivers by providing them an easy access to the information for their immediate needs in health, education, financial aid, transportation, employment, leisure or their rights in general by tightening the existing offers/services in an accessible online platform. Therefore, with the online guide the partners wanted to create a useful instrument for people with acquired disability to be far better equipped to be active members of the society prior to beginning of the project. In this context, we wanted people with disabilities to increase their self-confidence, and independence in comparison to existing schemes. In addition, we also wanted to create awareness regarding acquired disability as it requires re-socializing according to their new circumstances. In this respect, our intellectual output was perceived as a solid innovative tool to such a need and increase awareness to greater cooperation with other organizations offering services to the target group within each country.
Being acquired disabled later on in life is a real challenge for the individuals whether physical, organic or sensory, but for their families as well. Moreover, disability itself is also in a broader perspective for most countries within the EU is an urgent issue for the inclusion of these people into social life. Even though there are many reasons why people with acquired disabilities have issues in taking part in social life actively, one of the most important of them is the lack of guidance when they first become acquired disabled. Absence of guidance at this crucial time costs in many respects such as lack of employment and education that may lead to social isolation. Therefore, we wanted to create an innovative instrument in the form of an online guide to support people with acquired disabilities and their families to engage civic activities and at the same time being aware of the options to improve their qualifications and thus their levels of employability and integration into the labor market along with raising awareness regarding “acquired disability” in general public.