Together We Can! – Capacity Building to support youth with deafblindness in India and Bangladesh. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Together We Can! – Capacity Building to support youth with deafblindness in India and Bangladesh.

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 : Capacity Building for youth in ACP countries, Latin America and Asia

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

A deafblind person is both deaf and blind, often with additional disabilities. Because 95% of what we learn comes through sight and hearing, deafblind people face unique challenges in communication, mobility and accessing information, making deafblindness one of the most isolating of disabilities. Deafblind people are profoundly excluded due to the lack of understanding of their complex needs and limited expectations of them. In most poor countries there is little awareness about deafblindness and consequently no support exists. They face huge challenges, but with the right support it is possible for them to lead quality lives and be active members of society. This project aims to develop innovative approaches to addressing the training needs of young people with deafblindness in India and Bangladesh that can be shared with other low income and middle income countries.

We designed a project that will deliver a positive impact on individual participants in non-formal training in particular: more active participation in society; and more opportunities for young people with deafblindness in gaining an education or accessing jobs by creating greater interconnections between formal, non-formal education, vocational training, and the labour market.

The project will also deliver changes at systemic level: increased quality of vocational training for young people with deafblindness; and broader understanding of practices, policies and systems in training young people with deafblindness across participating countries.

Concretely Sense International (SI) will work with its two partners to develop and test new non-formal training methodologies to enable young deafblind learners to acquire soft skills needed in every day interactions, in particular in training and employment environments. In parallel, SI India and CDD will engage with vocational training providers and labour market representatives to remove barriers to the integration of deafblind young people in vocational training and provide career advice to young people regarding relevant vocational training and income generation activities. This will be supported by creation and dissemination of targeted communications materials to a wider range of training providers and through them potential employers to facilitate the inclusion of young people with deafblindness in future training courses and in basic jobs. More broadly, SI India and CDD will organise mass media conferences for their respective countries to raise awareness of deafblindness and support the inclusion of deafblind youth in training and employment.

The project will create a small cohort of young people able to take up training and employment opportunities resulting from greater awareness, willingness and capacity of vocational training providers and employers to recruit them. These interlinked activities will be used by SI and its partners to promote best practices for social inclusion of deafblind youth across their networks.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117398,57 Eur

Project Coordinator

SENSE INTERNATIONAL LBG & Country: UK

Project Partners