"<< Background >>The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2006, and signed by most of the EU country establishes, in Article 27 (on work and employment), “the right of persons with disabilities to work on an equal basis with others”. This means that they should enjoy the same access to employment opportunities, remuneration and labour rights as people without disabilities. Similarly, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all United Nations Member States in December 2015, identifies people with disabilities as one of several groups of vulnerable people who must be empowered. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) contained in the 2030 Agenda make explicit reference to disability in several labour market-related targets and their associated indicators.So, our main priority with this project is social inclusion as our target group – d/Deaf (in the scientific literature, deaf with the capital “D”; refers to those deaf people who feel a member of a linguistic and cultural community, instead of the one with the lowercase “d”; refers to those with hearing impairment but who do not feel part of the deaf community) young job seekers - is particularly vulnerable to social exclusion.In Europe-28 there are about 500,000 deaf young people. Their career aspirations do not differ from hearing youngsters. However, the obstacles that they need to overcome so that to achieve their professional goals are much bigger. There are many tools helping young people to effectively enter the labour market. Unfortunately, all or most of the mainstream resources in this field, are not accessible to d/Deaf young: as example texts do not meet their reading requirements, videos are not subtitled or translated into Sign Language, tools and other resources are inappropriate or inaccessible, mainstream support services, career counsellors, mentors, trainers, and youth worker have little or no experience with d/Deaf people. Our project is directed to young d/Deaf people, and to youth worker who works or would wish to work with d/Deaf young people. We would also like our project to have an influence on the people from the environment of young d/Deaf people and show them that it is worth supporting Deaf person in his/her professional aspirations.<< Objectives >>MAKE IT WORK project will develop project results - tools and training materials - designed to provide access to employment regulations in an inclusive and accessible way for d/Deaf young job seekers. With the products of the project, d/Deaf young job seekers will be able to access employment information in sign language and accessible written form to use in their daily working lives. So, they will have digital resources in sign language at their fingertips which they can refer to in their own time, replay and repeat, consult without outside help - in other words, they can use the project outputs to exercise self-determination in their employment relationships and working lives. At the same time, provide training and materials for a youth worker to give them the instrument to support the social and professional inclusion of the young d/Deaf job seeker. This is empowerment.We plan to do it by:1. developing a set of tools helping and guiding young d/Deaf job seeker in the process of entering the labour market (translated into their languages).2. giving young d/Deaf job seeker information about how to define what skills and competencies they already have, and about how and where they can improve them.3. giving young d/Deaf job seeker information about which skills and competencies are mostly required at the labour market.4. giving tools and instructions to youth worker about how to empower young d/Deaf job seeker and support them on their professional inclusion.5. encouraging career counsellors to reach Deaf young people and help them to enter the labour market effectively.<< Implementation >>• Communication via project management tool and skype (at least 4 meetings per year) • Establishing and maintaining the project office. This will be the centre of project management and administration, the place of collecting all documents connected with project implementation.• Hiring project administrative staff. There will be one project manager, who will be responsible for all administrative and management issues related to project management (at the level of organization and at the level of the whole Consortium). In each partner organization, there will be one administrative officer, who will be responsible for the administrative side of the implementation of the project in their organization.• Preparation of all necessary project documents: contracts with project partners, reporting templates;• Development of a Project Management Plan (main management document containing all rules which will be followed during implementation of the project – managerial, financial, quality assurance, the definition of roles of each partner, time management), setting out duties and responsibilities of each partner organization;• Setting up a financial plan (which is a part of project management plan), clear to all partners, which points out: payment schedules, necessary financial documents, and other issues related to project finances;• Settling deadlines and milestones – establishing a pattern that helps to achieve goals on time, as well as ongoing monitoring of the implementation of these (detailed Action Plan containing division of big tasks into small ones and timelines for each small task).• Skype management meetings (1-2 representatives of each partner institution – regular review on progress within the project, ongoing evaluation, minimizing the risk of non-achieving project goals).• Project Leader: monitoring project activities, monitoring work of partner organizations, project management• Project partners: coordinating fulfilling obligations assigned to each partner in a bilateral agreement,• Costs are related to project management and administration (salaries of staff, office costs, etc.• 20 (4 per partner) half-yearly reports (both narrative and financial) • 20 (4 per partner) half-yearly quality reports • 20 (4 per partner) half-yearly dissemination reports • 20 (4 per partner) feedback questionnaires - there are completed after each TNM • 5 sustainability reports (1 per partner)• 5 final reports (1 per partner) • 3 Project Results• 5 MEs• 2 Learning Teaching Activities• 4 TPMs<< Results >>MAKE IT WORK project will have 3 mains projects results: First project result: ""Analysis and Abstract"" This first product will be a digital survey (video in sign language with subtitles), analysis and transnational report (or abstract) to ascertain attitudes and knowledge levels regarding employment regulations among young d/Deaf job seekers. Second project results: ""E-accessible Toolkit""This package will be a set of materials for young d/Deaf job seekers. These materials will contain basic information (considering the specificity of the group, which is young d/Deaf job seekers) about how to define their strong sides (what skills and competencies do they already have), how to decide where they want to work, how to look for a job (and where), how to prepare application document, how to act during the interview, basic information about what to be aware of starting a new job. We will also add information about what soft skills and competencies are nowadays mostly wanted by employers from different sectors, and where young d/Deaf job seekers can find courses helping to improve these skills. These materials will be available in the form of publication and short videos. The whole materials will be translated into the sign languages of partner countries.In the framework of this package, training involving young d/Deaf job seekers will be organized.Third project results: “Breaking the sound barrier: Supporting deaf young people with careers guidance”.This will be a set of guidelines for youth worker – about how to empower young d/Deaf job seekers for their socio-professional inclusion. This will be publication available in English and languages of partners with summarizing in sign language. In this publication, we would like to show youth worker that fruitful work with young d/Deaf job seekers people is possible (even if they do not know sign language) but should be different than with hearing young people (not necessarily harder). And at the same time, this work can be satisfying and give impressive results – if only it is done considering the specificity of young d/Deaf job seekers and respecting their needs. We want to give them practical instructions about how to reach young d/Deaf job seekers, how to work with them, how to help them to increase their chances to enter the labour market."

<< Background >>The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities of the UN highlights the importance of sign language and strongly encourages the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity of the deaf community. However, “only up to two percent of deaf children around the globe access their education through formal sign language” (McClain-Nhlapo, 2017).Concurrently, hearing impairment relates to low academic performance at school as well as low sense of confidence and self-esteem. (NCSE, 2011). This is related, among others factos, to the limited use of sign language at schools and to the fact that deaf students are not taught about the history of sign language, the successes of the deaf people and the overall opportunities that exist to foster their development. As a result, when deaf children grow up, they lag behind both in academic performance and in terms of personal development and self-esteem. They are lacking confidence but also a sense of a strong identity and a sense of belonging in a community of people from whom they can be inspired to pursue their own dreams in life. Consequently, they are usually faced with less opportunities not only to integrate in the working and civic life but also to step up, become extrovert, innovate, and drive positive change in their communities. In this context, the main mission of the ‘Sign for Change’ project is to enhance the extroversion of Deaf children and boost their self-confidence with the ultimate aim of encouraging them to develop personal skills and key 21st century competences that will help them integrate as equal, active and productive members of the society. This goal will be achieved by harnessing the power of sign language and developing an innovative and inclusive training and education package for teachers and students with hearing problems. The methodology to be used is the Social Innovation Education (SIE) model, which has been developed as part of the H2020 NEMESIS project and has been tested and validated for its contribution to personal and collective development in several primary and secondary schools around Europe.<< Objectives >>Particularly, the project aims to achieve the following: - Develop an innovative educational model through SIE that will allow teachers to adopt a new approach in teaching and learning for deaf students - Provide role-models to deaf children by connecting them with the Deaf Community and particularly with deaf entrepreneurs, artists and scientists. - Highlight and promote sign language as a tool for inclusive, innovative education. - Train teachers and enable them to apply the innovative Results of the programme to develop deaf children’s changemaking competences. - Bring deaf students from different countries together to connect and foster their self-confidence as they will view themselves as members of the broader Deaf community.<< Implementation >>The above objectives will be achieved in a 30-month project and the results will be totally open and free accessible to the public. The ‘Sign for Change’ project brings together 6 partners from 5 different countries: Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Spain with complementary skills and with necessary background to achieve the goals ofthe project. The coordinator is FAU-ILI, an academic research center and partners are STIMMULI, a social enterprise which design innovative educational methodologies, Turin Institute of the Deaf, Center of Greek Sign Language and two educational institutions/ schools with deaf students (Colegio Gaudem from Spain and LKNUC from Lithuania).Under the coordination of FAU-ILI the partnership will develop five Results, a training event for teachers in Spain, five physical and one digital partners meeting, management documents for the good governance of the project, pilot training and dissemination activities in all counties. This project will have impact at local, regional, national and European level in the school context of deaf students, educational policies, deaf communities and Sign Language institutions.<< Results >>The project will have the following Results:- A genuine study on the educational context and the changemaking potential of deaf children in Europe. - An E-book “Deaf Changemakers - role models and inspiring stories”. - A Social Innovation Education Curriculum for deaf students. - An online course for teachers and professionals working with deaf students. - Campaigning toolkits for guiding deaf students on creating their own campaigning videos. Regarding other outcomes, the project aims to have a meaningful impact not only on deaf students, teachers and professionals working with the deaf, but also on institutions of sign language, deaf communities and families of deaf children. More specifically:-Deaf students: At least 50 deaf students will directly participate in the activities of the Sign for Change project-Teachers: The project will directly train 15 teachers and professionals who work with deaf students during the training event and at least 100 as part of the Online Course offering.-Sign language institutions and deaf communities: The role models E-book, the adapted SIE model, the online course and the campaigning toolkits can be useful for various environments with deaf students and learners in general. It is envisioned that in the long term the projects results will contribute significantly in the introduction of Social Innovation Education practices in the deaf student’s context, which as an extension will bring a positive impact upon students’ willingness and competences to actively participate in society while strengthening their skills and competences.

Based on the need to increase the quality of foreign language teaching to children, pupils and students with hearing impairment, with cochlear implants and with other related disabilities we decided to take part in the international project with other EU countries. The elementary target of this cooperation is to gain knowledge about methods and strategies of teaching the national language, sign language and English language to children, pupils and students with hearing impairment. Special emphasis is placed on the national language and sign language. We would like to increase the level of language knowledge of these persons as well as to increase their interest in the study and school attendance by improving and enriching teaching methods, making the learning process more engaging and also by implementing more attractive educational programs. Good knowledge of communication systems i.e. sign (mother tongue), national and English language (especially in the read and written form) is a very important element of forming the self-esteem as well as strengthening social integration of these people. Their ability to actively join in the society increases their value at the labour market and also the possibility to take part in the democratic life of Europe. Insufficient or low level of communication skills can lead to failure at school. It can also become an obstacle in gaining relevant qualifications. In some cases there is premature or early termination of school attendance and thus these young people are at risk of unemployment as well as social exclusion. Education and special preparation of pupils and students with hearing impairment and other related disabilities is seen as an important means of how to achieve their personal fulfilment. Both communities, the deaf and the hearing, can benefit from the functioning and inclusive educational approach, which can contribute to higher level of understanding between these two communities. Due to their active role in the society, the pupils, students and their families will benefit from the positive and complex consequence of language learning. We also hope, that this project will lead to the professional growth of all participants, their motivation for further education as well as the increase in work satisfaction. The number of 18 specialists and pedagogues with years of experience will take part in the project. These experts are authorized to pass their knowledge on the pupils, colleagues as well as partners from other countries. The project will concern mainly the following activities: implementation of digital technologies into the learning process, bilingual approach to learning (national language/English language), bilingual teaching and bilingual dictionaries (national language/sign language), the specificities of teaching migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers, the introductions of eTwinning platform, national and foreign language vocabulary learning, reading comprehension, and special teaching and reading materials for hearing impaired persons, other language or communication systems used in language learning (sign language, Cued SPeech) and integrative systems of education for hearing impaired persons and students with additional disabilities. The project will be realized in 4 meetings, where the participants will develop the teaching and learning methods, pedagogical approaches and activities via demonstrations and examples of best practice, discussion workshops and presentations. The output of the project will be publishing of international collection of the best practices. The results of the project will be clearly presented there and will be available to specialists as well as the general public. Moreover a network of support specialists will be created. These experts will specialize in the language teaching to hearing impaired persons and will cooperate and take part in improving education in the wider European context.

"Worldwide, one in every 1,000 students is deaf, in Europe-28 that represents close to 500,000 deaf people who are trying to gain access to knowledge & employment. However, this community suffers from a lack of inclusion: 80% of the deaf are illiterate & have a lot of difficulties to find a job (the employment rate is 71% for people with slight deafness, 59% with middle deafness, & only 34 % for people with deep deafness). This shows the importance of instilling a wide breadth of knowledge early on, to ensure that STUDENTS-YOUTH WITH DEAFNESS or HEARING IMPAIRMENT have as much opportunity to receive knowledge & information & to become responsible citizens.However, the dissemination of existing information adapted to the deaf audience is seriously deficient for deaf adults & dramatically non-existent for deaf students-youth. This prevents deaf people from accessing information & this is even more critical at school, where teachers are unable to use pedagogical content adapted to their deaf students.Existing material uses content too rich in text (with sentences often long & complicated to be easily understood by deaf children) & videos are containing voice-overs & subtitles. This has the effect of demotivating many deaf children in school learning. This has the effect of demotivating many deaf pupils in school learning.deAf DigitAl PlaTform (ADAPT) project aims to develop the first e-magazine adapted to deaf adolescents. We focus on pupils between 13 to 21 years old. Indeed, it is the age range when students learn how to become independent & how to advocate & the needs become crucial.With pedagogical elements that are easily understood by deaf students, we want to support teachers to nurture students' interest in school learning, to open deaf adolescents to the world, to arouse their curiosity, to develop their knowledge & to give them the means to communicate with their environment, including their family. What then allow them to improve their learning performance & to enhance their access to abstract concepts & reading potentialities.The e-magazine will be proposed in two different & complementary media:•a web site to gather all the available contents (combined with a search engine)•an enriched digital magazine with a structured & editorialized content, sent through subscription & readable offline.Information will be proposed through written texts (in English & in the national languages of the different partners) & videos using sign language (with a specific usage of the International Sign IS).We intend to use interactive potentialities of web site & e-book to propose unprecedented content for deaf adolescents (culture, educational games & activities to make by themselves), along with educational sheets than can be used by teachers & family members: •6 Thematic topics (e.g. History, Biology, Human Rights, introduction to STEAM…)•12 Educational games using 3 different game engines (e.g. Memory, MCQ video…)•36 Manual activities videos (e.g. cooking, scientific experience, creative activities, magic trick, discovering sports rules…)The ADAPT project brings together 6 complementary specialized partners; members of HIPEN (the European Network for Professionals working with People with Hearing Problems) :• ""11th May"" is one of the oldest state special education institution in Serbia and Yugoslavia, and the fourth special educational school for children with hearing and speech impairments.• Since more than 200 years, Istituto dei Sordi di Torino - IST is specializing in providing a wide range of services and activities to people who are deaf, hard of hearing or deafblind.• Liceul Tehnologic Special pentru Deficienti de Auz (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), an institute that works with about 200 deaf students, from kindergarten to high school.• Specjalny Osrodek Szkolono-Wychowawczy dla Nieslyszacych (Kraków, Poland) an institution that educates young people who are deaf & hearing impaired.• Educational Center for Deaf & Hard of Hearing of Lithuania (Vilnius, Lithuania), a public educational institution providing education from pre-school to upper secondary stages for the hearing impaired students.- GAUDEM, a school which embraces special & mainstream education for deaf & hearing students for over 40 years.Deaf students between 13 to 21 are estimated at 37,000 in EU-28, 16,000 in the 6 countries of the partners (Serbia, Lithuania, Italy, Romania, Spain &Poland). During the program, we aim at gathering:•2,000 ebook subscribers•5,000 Facebook fans•300 public bodies, associations, schools, educational institutions, public libraries•15 contributors who will create new contentsADAPT is designed to function independently at the end of the project. By developing an easy-to-use platform & by providing detailed explanatory sheets explaining step by step how to create & upload autonomously new contents, we expect contributors & users to appropriate the platform& make it live."

The Feuerstein method is a unique educational system which uses mediation, dynamic assessment and special programs to enhance learning potential, to improve thinking and learning skills of students from different educational and social backgrounds. The main goal of the project – to implement and to disseminate Feuerstein method in school. The main activities of the project are related with implementation of Learning Propensity Assessment device (LPAD) and Instrumental Enrichment programs (FIE) in provision of students with various educational needs in various educational settings. During the project study/analysis ''Implementation of Learning Propensity Assessment Device (LPAD) in assessment of gifted children'', methodology /guidelines ''Evaluation of Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment programs for children with special needs and video material ' Implementation of the Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment Program” for mediators, teachers and specialists were prepared. Project results and products provide methodological support for mediators and teachers and disseminate this method as an innovative and new approach to assessment and learning, foster assessment and development of key competencies of the students, equity and inclusion in education and society. Project coordinator: National center for special need education and psychology, project's partners: Charles University in Prague, Hearing and Speech Correction Centre Portorož, Lithuanian Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Kedainiai Sviesioji Gymnasium, Vilniaus Stanevicius secondary school, A. Kulviecio classical gymnasium in Vilnius .