The aim of the project is to promote cooperation and raise awareness among young people with and without visual disabilities. Young people with vision should learn where, how, to what extent they can help people with visual disabilities in acceptable way for the blind ones. As a part of the project, we want to carry out activities among young people with visual disabilities and without visual problems by using adapted types of sport and promoting it not only locally but also on international scale. Young people who have not been in contact with visually impaired and blind people lack the knowledge and skills of dealing with people with visual difficulties, since the mind can only be formed by acting jointly. The opportunity to participate in joint activities is a benefit for all young people, both with and without visual problems. It is an opportunity for young people with low vision and blind eyes to participate fully in society. For young people without visual difficulties, it is an opportunity to expand their horizons, gain knowledge and skills, become more open to the unknown. Joint action and achievement of the goal will contribute to the development of collaborative skills, mutual respect, and trust building. Cooperation with young people from other EU countries within the framework of the project will enable positive communication experiences, strengthen foreign language knowledge, expand knowledge of other EU cultures; encourage daring, and seeking new challenges. The project will involve young people from The Society of Riga Visually Impaired and Blind “See me” and the Polish association “Fundacja Kopalnia Inicjatyw”, both with and without visual disturbance. Participation in the project will be voluntary. The project will involve 26 direct participants, with 13 participants from each country. There will be approximately 30 more participants in each country participating in the organisation of project activities locally. Project activities, lessons will include non-formal training of young people with vision on dynamism, forms of expression, special auxiliary staff, supporting personnel, guide dogs, necessary assistance, etc. All the participants in the project will participate in joint activities for better understanding of life of those with and without vision; practical application of knowledge in cooperation; cycling in tandem, testing infrastructure and environmental accessibility; mutual learning, collaboration, trust, respect to one another, learning communication capabilities and a foreign language; jointly collecting and drawing up acquired materials and lessons, creating a project diary, describing the experience gained through participation in project activities. Young people will share their experience stories telling about the types of help or support they need in their lives. Methods used within the project: group work, interviews, interviews, skills, etc. As a result of the project, young people will gain awareness, necessary knowledge at work and in communication with people with visual disturbances and share the experience with schoolmates, students, colleagues. Young people will acquire new knowledge and skills, improve communication skills and foreign language knowledge, be more confident of themselves, be able to cooperate better and trust people without visual impairment. A collection of youth experience stories (with collected and presented materials, information) will be created during the project, which will be useful for continued cooperation with young people with visual disabilities. Summarised recommendations made during the project for assistants of people with vision disabilities (text, audio, video format, etc.) will be inserted into the IT environment. Information on checked and safe tandem cycling routes in Latvia and Poland will be gathered and provided publically.
The main goal of the project was to enable visually impaired and blind young people get aware of their ability to organize and run events. A valuable benefit was the practical experience of working together with sighted young people. Additionally, we wanted sighted young people to practise working together with young people with visual impairments to break prejudices and stereotypes and understand their needs. All this was facilitated by joint activities during the implementation of the project. Cooperation with young people from other EU countries created a positive communication experience, strengthened knowledge of foreign languages, and expanded knowledge of Polish and Latvian culture. It encouraged them to broaden their horizons, dare and look for new challenges. Practically: • Recommendations for a blind assistant were compiled and developed • Informative meetings were held with pupils, students, teachers and lecturers in Bulduri and Ogre. • A safe route for tandem cycling in Riga and Krakow was developed and tested. • At the end of the project, young people without visual impairments learned about the responsibilities of assisting blind and partially sighted people and using the experience gained, they will have the opportunity to inform other young people who want to become assistants for blind and partially sighted people.
Visual disability is one of the most severe forms of disability. About 85% of information a human perceives visually. For those who are visually impaired everyday routines and self-evident things are hindered: moving, obtaining information, communicating with others, making new contacts. These restrictions are particularly painful for the young people, who thus have difficulty integrating into the society. Young people who have not been in contact with visually impaired and blind people lack the knowledge and skills to interact with people with visual impairments, as their experience of communication is formed through visual action. For these reasons, we decided to apply for a project competition. Implementing the project gives an opportunity for the young people of our association take part in the process of organization and management of the project thus contributing to the development of their self-esteem. An additional stimulus was participation in a similar project in Poland when we involved the partners from the association Kopalnia Inicjatyw in Poland in the project.