Lights on Rights! A reflection focus to promote active citizenship of people with Intellectual Disabilities Erasmus Project

Project Title

Lights on Rights!
A reflection focus to promote active citizenship of people with Intellectual Disabilities

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Inclusion – equity; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

Our project “Lights on Rights!” is part of the European Union strategy on Disabilities. Moreover, 2015 was a year in which we were informed of the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Europe. With this project we have attempted to “illuminate” the rights, emphasize them, publicize them and divulge them.

The state of affairs for ID people is that their full social inclusion and active citizenship are not yet a reality, but future challenges. The policies to remove physical barriers have not been extended to the overcoming of mental barriers.

All innovative models of care suggest that ID persons, currently mere recipients of support, have to become contributors for the common good.
Our project has provided an answer to the need for further progress in the full conquest of rights, such that our ID learners will have an active role in this process which involves thousands of European citizens. They were not only recipients but also contributors, offering their experiences, reflections, creations… their voices. As opposed to being isolated in their group or environment, they were participants in open forums, directly sharing their experiences and opinions, and engaging in personal dialogues with disability people from all over Europe.

The Erasmus Plus programme offers the opportunity to shape this movement. To reflection and voice, the programme adds the value of exchange. For people with disabilities, this transnational educational exchange has meant not just an opportunity to develop experiences but also has ensured the proper exercise of their rights, mobility, freedom, transportation, and equality, in other words Full Citizenship.

Our objectives aimed at our learners, their relatives and also professionals were as follows:
– Awareness of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its recommendations for Europe
– The promotion of respect for human rights in micro, meso and macro environments, detecting situations of vulnerability, developing visibilization strategies and through the active teaching the citizenship.
– An increase in practices that are based on the participation of ID people.
– An improvement in the quality of life of ID persons.
– The establishment of synergies among different partnerships and European forums.

The learner beneficiaries, linked to the 5 institutions of the partner countries (Spain, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland and Sweden), are ID adults in different situations: there are groups which are incorporated into the labor market, and other groups being trained to do so. Some people perform occupational, educational, and social empowerment activities. Others are in residential facilities throughout the day and are highly dependent. Therefore, each partner has adapted the type of activities to groups that it caters to, to their abilities and theirs interests. More than 300 learners have benefited from our project during these two years. There have been 51 mobilities of people with intellectual disabilities, who have traveled together with professionals to the meetings organized in each partner country.

The five partners have reviewed the General programme of activities. In these activities we have obtained tangible results that can be touched, manipulated, and appreciated directly. And we have obtained intangible results, that have to do with values, inclusion and with the wellbeing of the ID people, involving all those actions that help build a more respectful and inclusive environment. The Self-management work line and Empowerment experiences have had great importance in our project. There has also been a special emphasis on the right to work and on the inclusion in the adult world.

Our publishable products are:
– Methodological Guideline for the Promotion of the Rights of Citizens with Disabilities that helps disseminate our knowledge and work programmes to other interested centers and professionals all over Europe.
– A computerized database to facilitate research the impact of the project on people with intellectual disabilities and their immediate environment. Based on the questionnaires on Knowledge of Rights and Perception of Discrimination.

All the partners form part of the Federations and institutions at the European level, therefore we have made a great impact upon and reach out to thousands of people through the proactive inclusion and participation in these networks, and forums of representation of persons with disabilities. We have also taken our project to the political arena: Town halls, national parliaments, ombudsmen.

Our goals were ambitious, from the gathering of information to the implementation of actions.

In 24 months we have deployed actions relating to all our goals, overcoming difficulties and limitations, encouraging participation and at the same time respecting the learning pace of our learners, and promoting a horizon of hope and illusion. We all have put Lights on Rights!

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 178592 Eur

Project Coordinator

PARC SANITARI SANT JOAN DE DEU & Country: ES

Project Partners

• FUB Stockholm
• KEZENFOGVA OSSZEFOGAS A FOGYATEKOSOKERT ALAPITVANY
• BONIFRATERSKA FUNDACJA DOBROCZYNNA
• CENTER ZA USPOSABLJANJE DELO IN VARSTVO DOLFKE BOSTJANCIC DRAGA