We strongly believe that everyone should have equal opportunities to participate in community life and become active citizens. However, many people with disabilities face barriers. Therefore, one of our objectives was to identify these barriers and address them in cooperation with all target groups involved in the project. Our intention was to help create more inclusive communities that welcome people with disabilities as volunteers. We encouraged organizations that work with volunteers to be open to volunteers with disabilities. We also collaborated with parents, caretakers, and institutions supporting people with disabilities, as they often play a key role in facilitating social inclusion for these individuals. Our primary focus, however, was on people with disabilities themselves: to empower them to become volunteers, help them discover the benefits of volunteering, and show them that becoming a volunteer is a valuable and achievable path. Another objective of the project was to support education in volunteering, for volunteers themselves, for inclusion buddies (also volunteers, support for volunteers with disability), for parents and caretakers and for volunteer coordinators in volunteer involving organization.
The partner organizations noticed that from the political point of view, the importance of inclusive volunteering is recognised for quite some time, and the “Diversity and Inclusion Strategy” of the new Erasmus+ programme shows the importance of this matter on a European level. Nevertheless too little had been done so far to put these strategies into practice. One prominent commonality in all European countries is the disparity between the declaration of inclusiveness with most of the volunteers involving organizations (VIOs) and the actual situation: most of them do not systematically involve people with disabilities as volunteers or have a strategy and activities on inclusive volunteering. And all across Europe people with disabilities are less likely to volunteer and lack opportunities to do so. A comprehensive approach to promote, support and for implementing inclusive volunteering was still missing. The opportunities volunteering offers, are often lacking for people with disabilities: providing help, where it is needed, gaining a sense of contribution, building relationships, learning new skills, and personal development.