<< Objectives >>The main objectives of the project are developing the competences of professionals in the field of preparing persons with disabilities for life and work in the 21st century, supporting integration of persons with disabilities into the society and labour market by obtaining skills for the 21st century in the form of blended-learning, covering various modern forms of education and activities, and promoting social inclusion, lifelong learning and active citizenship of persons with disabilities.<< Implementation >>Project activities are organized into 7 activity packages: Project management and implementation Transnational project meetings Creation of the REFORM Manual for professionalsDevelopment, pilot testing and evaluation of the REFORM Blended-Learning Educational Programme for Persons with Disabilities REFORM Short Staff Training Event Sharing and promotion activities REFORM Final Seminars<< Results >>The main results of the project are:1. REFORM Manual “What does a professional working with persons with disabilities need to know about the skills for the 21st century?“2. REFORM Blended-Learning Educational Programme for Persons with Disabilities to acquire skills for the 21st century called “We want to be ready for the life in the 21st century”

"“Illiteracy, defined as the total inability to read and write, has now been almost completely eradicated in EU, the phenomenon of functional illiteracy is becoming Increasingly serious.” EU Parliament’s report on illiteracy & social exclusion-2002. Functional illiteracy is reading, writing and calculation skills that are inadequate ""to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level”. Functional illiteracy is contrasted with illiteracy in the strict sense, meaning the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language. According to a recent study from OECD, it is concerning about 80 Mio people from 15 to 65 in EU. Amongst the measures recommended to reduce functional illiteracy, the implementation of innovative trainings remains one of the best options. ICT based trainings are a suitable solution and also will participate to reduce the digital gap. The MIMR project has developed a distance learning training in order to improve basic and transversal skills for functional illiterate persons. The main objectives were:- Developing basic & transversal skills - Promoting innovative practices in education using distance learning toolsThis training includes 5 modules: Reading and writing, Mathematics, Digital skills, Entrepreneurship, English languageOur special project focus was on the music thematic for the following reasons:- Most of the functional illiterate persons have experienced academic failure. This project has created a different learning environment from what they have experienced before in order to motivate them. - Developing the same thematic during the whole training allowed to create a link among all the modules.- Finally, the music thematic has allowed to enable the trainers’ creativity and gave them the opportunity to create funnier pedagogical materials.The project partners are 4 training companies from France, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia with long working experiences with different target groups like unemployed persons. In our work, we are facing more and more functional illiteracy. This project has enabled us to develop and integrate innovative training materials will help our students to improve their basic skills and to get access to vocational training and/or employment. The project activities and methodology has been divided in 4 steps: 1 Preparation- Creation of the detailed training program including pedagogical objectives and sub-modules and evaluation process.- Selection and adaptation of the appropriate distance learning tools. 2 Creation- Creation of the pedagogical materials.All the partners took part to two full days training on how to create distance learning materials with the selected learning tools.The creation process was divided in 5 steps: creation of the scripts, the visuals, the quizzes, the audio recording and the publishing of the document and uploading to the project learning management system (LSM). 3 Implementation- Testing phase of the training on learners, tutors and trainersAll partner organisations have implemented the testing phase in their own organisations or in cooperation with different training institutions or vocational schools. Prior to that, we developed appropriate questionnaires to assess the quality and impact of the trainings and the Learning Management System.- Evaluation of the testing phase4 Availability- Creation of the online project guide for other organisations to use or duplicate this training.This guide is available from the website project and it has the following content:-Partnership-Presentation of the project-Distance learning tools-Pedagogical materials-EvaluationThe tangible results of the project:- An innovative and attractive pedagogical approach in order to improve basic and transversal skills of functional illiterate persons- A distance learning tool with all the pedagogical materials- A comprehensive online project guide including the full project methodology in order to be able to duplicate this project in another country and in another language, and also including all the evaluation reports of the national testing phases.The impacts of the project on our target group:- The increase of their interest for doing a training on basic and transversal skills - The significant improvement of their basic and transversal skills- Thanks to this, we consider that their access to vocational training and/or their employability have been facilitated. The impacts of the project on relevant stakeholders:- An interest in using or duplicating this training method and tools by other training organizations and schools.- An interest by job offices and financing organizations in communicating about this training method and developing trainings for jobseekers and employees on basic and transversal skills.The partners also noted an improvement in their skills in the creation of innovative teaching resources and the use of distance learning tools."

Employment challenges for persons with disabilities (PWDs) have been an important issue all over the EU. The most common barriers to their integration include their long-term unemployment, age, insufficient education and difficult social conditions. Solving their situation requires a comprehensive approach involving all concerned stakeholders. Special attention should be paid to social and occupational rehabilitation and, incentives should be provided to employers to raise the employment level and retaining of persons with disabilities. We have endeavored to identify new forms and approached within the international context.The main objectives of the project included exchanging good practices in the field of integration of PWDs to labour market, developing and strengthening of an international network of organisations active in the field of facilitating the reintegration and supporting the inclusion of PWDs to labour market through innovative education, raising awareness and sensitisation of employers to employ PWDs by promoting the cooperation of labour market actors from different sectors and at different levels.The specific objectives of the project included the creation of an e-collection of good practices, round-table discussions, questionnaire surveys for employers and successful PWDs, innovative training programme for PWDs, a package of services for employers and dissemination materials (i.e. a flyer, website, brochure). The partnership engaged 4 organisations from 4 partner countries - CA Spoluprácou pre lepšiu budúcnosť - Veľký Meder (Slovak Republic), Napra Forgó Nonprofit Közhasznú kft. (Hungary), IZAP - Slunečnice z.ú. (Czech Republic), Fundatia crestina diakonia filiala Sfantu Gheorghe (Romania) providing consultancy services and career guidance to disadvantaged groups, social services for PWDs or, as accredited employers of PWDs, operating sheltered workshops.The main product of the project is the Innovative Training Programme for PWDs considering the requirements of the current labour market. The most important areas of education and labour market training for the target group were identified based upon:1.electronic collection of 12 good practices and experiences from the international environment,2.recommendations from 57 labour market actors collected during round table discussions,3.conclusions of questionnaire surveys participated in by 69 employers, and4.in-depth interview with 43 successfully employed PWDs.The innovativeness of the education programme lies in the fact that it has been developed based upon a comprehensive approach to the reintegration of the target group focusing on success factors, it is flexible, comprehensive and effective. The education program has been tested in partner countries on the sample of 37 participants.The outputs of the project also include an innovative package of services for employers containing various forms of cooperation and learning opportunities, recommended methods and services to enhance their empathy to employing PWDs.The brochure contains a collection of successful life stories that can serve as an example for other persons with disabilities.All materials prepared under the project are available free-of-charge electronically on the website http://success-erasmusplus.eu.Impact:The project had a positive impact on the staff of partner organisations, contributed to obtaining new knowledge and to the development of their professional, methodological and social competences in the field of international cooperation as well as cooperation with PWDs. The international cooperation between partner organisations has intensified during the project cycle. Project activities at national level contributed to the creation of partner networks between experts and organisations operating in different sectors. The innovative training programme has been integrated in the educational portfolio of each partner organisation and made available for other candidates. Participation in the pilot testing of the education programme has contributed to the strengthening of self-confidence, communication skills and social competencies of PWDs and increased their employability in all partner countries. The main benefit for the employers was that the project activities contributed to raising their awareness, enabled networking of organisations and facilitated the exchange of experience in the field of employing PWDs.The long-term benefits of the project include the following:•free access to project products and their utilisation in everyday practice by other organisations,•strengthening the involvement of organisations working with disadvantaged persons in the education process,•motivation of PWDs to lifelong learning,•better understanding of the situation of PWDs and reducing their discrimination, •strengthening the motivation of other employers to employ PWDs,•utilisation of experience and international examples of good practices.

One of the objectives in terms of employment in all European countries is a special support to the employment of persons with disabilities (PWDs). Although there are different employment support services for PWDs, their capacity in partner countries does not cover the national requirements. In filling this gap, the NGOs providing counselling and training for PWDs aimed at joining the labour market and using the potential of experts by experience play an increasingly important role.In our project, expert by experience is a PWD, who has been able to overcome and resolve the challenges of his/her life and who will be able, by improving his/her skills and competences by accomplishing this innovative training program, to offer his/her experience to help others in a similar situation.The main objectives of the project was to develop and strengthen an international network of organisations aimed at reintegration of PWDs, professionalisation of organisations, improving the knowledge and developing competences of mentors, vocational advisors, as well as PWDs through their involvement in an innovative training program for experts by experience and, support the (re)integration of PWDs.As part of the specific objectives, we focused on the activities and creation of particular outputs: organising a workshops, compiling an electronic collection of best practices, developing an Innovative Training Programme for experts by experience, training of trainers and additional PWDs as potential experts by experience, creating information materials (flyer, brochure) and designing a website (https://experience-erasmusplus.eu/).The partnership consisted of four organisations from four countries - Spoluprácou pre lepšiu budúcnosť – Veľký Meder (Slovak Republic), Human Profess Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft., Szombathely (Hungary), Fundația creștină diakonia filiala Sfântu Gheorghe (Romania), Dost Egitim Turizm Insaat Tekstil Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Ankara (Turkey) which provide consultancy and/or social services for various disadvantaged groups, or function as accredited employers operating sheltered workshops and workplaces.The main output of the project is the Innovative blended-learning Training Programme for experts by experience available in five different languages, which is freely available on the Internet. It contains the theoretical learning material divided into 14 chapters and available also in the form of e-learning, tests associated with each main theme and 43 interactive practical exercises. It aims to expand the knowledge and develop practical skills needed to provide consulting to PWDs. The programme was developed by a team of experts with a wealth of experience based upon the outputs of workshops organised in partner countries with the participation of 79 relevant labour market actors and, the electronic collection containing 11 best practices applied to the training of experts in partner countries.The innovative aspect of the programme is its possibility to adjust the learning of the theoretical material to the individual pace of learners due to using ICT in adult education on the basis of:- an e-learning platform including the training materials and tests to verify the level of theoretical knowledge, and- a shared platform to exchange experiences allowing the learners to consult the trainers during the course of the study.The testing of the Innovative Training Programme was participated in by 8 trainers and 49 adult learners – PWDs and received a positive feedback in all involved countries.Impact:The greatest benefit of the combined training programme is that it allows to strengthen the current skills of PWDs through the theoretical material, e-learning, practical training and e-platform in order to become proficient in providing consultancy services for other PWDs in a similar situation. The project has a positive impact on the employees of partner organisations and the participants of pilot testing in terms of gaining new knowledge and developing their professional, methodological and social competences. The project activities at the national level have also been beneficial from the viewpoint of creating partner networks between experts and organisations representing different sectors. The Innovative Training Program has been incorporated in the educational portfolio of each partner organisation and, made available to other interested users. The project activities expanded the spectrum of opportunities and forms of lifelong learning for people with disabilities and, therefore they can significantly contribute to their reintegration to the labour market.Long-term benefits:motivation of people with special needs to engage in lifelong learning (LLL);exploiting the potential of experts by experience in non-profit organisations;free access to project products and their use in everyday practice by other organisations;motivation of organisations working with the disadvantaged to engage in LLL process.

<< Objectives >>The main goal of the project is to support social inclusion and lifelong learning of people with mental disabilities by developing their environmental skills and competencies, shaping their environmental attitudes and responsibilities through education based on international experience. The project specifically focuses on supporting and developing international cooperation of participating organizations, building, and strengthening partnership networks and professionalisation of organizations.<< Implementation >>Project activities are organized into 8 work packages: Project management, coordination, controlSharing and promotion activities Organizing ECO-World Café round table discussions in partner countriesCreation of the Electronic Collection of ECO-COMPASS Good Practice Examples Creation, pilot testing and evaluation of Innovative Environmental Education ECO-COMPASSCreation of the ECO-COMPASS Project GuideTransnational project meetingsECO-COMPASS final workshops<< Results >>Main project results are:1. Innovative environmental education ECO-COMPASS focused on shaping ecological awareness, skills, competencies, attitudes and responsible behaviour of citizens with mental disabilities 2. Electronic Collection of ECO-COMPASS Good Practice Examples focused on environmental education and awareness-raising, with a special emphasis on citizens with mental disabilities 3. ECO-COMPASS Project Guide