Our project aims at developing self-awareness, self-confidence, advocay, time, event management and other soft skills of the members of our informal groups. The members of the informal groups are living with various disabilities and already participated in the „Here We Are” transnational initiative.Proposed activitiesFirst phase of the project (2019 january-september)Structured group sessions with the aim of increasing the level of self-knowlegde, reinforcing positive group dynamics, increasing the quality of communication within the group and to carefully plan activities to be executed in the second phase of the project.Structure of the group sessions (each being 2X1,5 hours)•Contracting, frames, rules, expectations (1st meeting)•Me in the group. 6 sessions dedicated to efficient communication, conflict resolution and coping techniques through self-knowledge, feedback and reinforcement received from others. The sessions contribute to group cohesion, increased feeling of responsiblity felt towards other group members and the undertakings of the group. Methods to be applied: T-group, socio-therapy, drama•Me and the group. 3 sessions dedicated to the formulation of the group’s bylaws; channel and frequency of communication, areas and limits responsibilities•4 sessions are dedicated as preparatory and planning meetings for phase 2 of the project. Expected outcomes are developed ideas, exact schedules, and to-do-lists.•1 session is dedicated for evaluation of the processGroup sessions are accompanied by individual coaching sessions for each member of the informal group. The coaching sessions are parellel to the group sessions. Aim of the coaching process is to reinforce soft skill gains on personal level, validate learning outcomes. Each member of the groups is expected to participate in a one hour coaching session every month.Second phase(2019 september-2020 may)The groups are conducting 6 events with local communities aimed at sensitivization of the general populationb and keeping equity, human rights of people living with disabilities high on the agenda. Events are expected to be having a high outreach, including local and national media coverage.Third phase (2020 june)Evaluation and validation of learning outcomes, designing the follow-up.Project results- 6 sensitizing activities per countries (HU, PT)- a minimum of 8 viedo-journal entries through the project per countries- a minimum of 12 mainstream media appearances through the project altogether (TV, radio, online or printed media)- a minimum of 8 blog entries per countries- 2*34 group sessions-2*90 individual coaching sessions-3 transnational meetings (HU, PT, HU)- regular posts in the social media- 1 summary including the processed results of the qualitative and quantitative evaluations throughout the project (transnational meetings, group session, evaluation of the sensitising activities done by the involved participants) - 1 publication describing the sensitizing activities and their results, illustrated with photos

"CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF DISABILITY TO FOSTER ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP In general, having access to the practice of citizenship is more complex for people with disabilities. Access to culture, access to commitment, access to training or work, access to emotional life and parenting : lots of barriers still exist. However, far from the « miserabilistic » vision and assistanat sometimes conveyed by the handicap, with our European partners, we wish to highlight the added value which can be brought through situations of disability. AN INCLUSIVE APPROACH FOR AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY Each of us is convinced of the value of an inclusive society, or each one takes a step towards the other to improve the ""living together"". We wish to work on the modalities of meeting between « valid » and « invalid"" publics to allow to make our vision and representations changed. For this we must exchange, show and demonstrate in order to model the principle of an inclusive approach. This collective reflection on the inclusive approach includes, in fact, different actors, persons with or without disabilities. HANDICAP: A PATHWAY TOWARDS SOCIAL INNOVATION Each of us is also convinced that disability has to do with social innovation. The problems raised by the situation of handicap make it possible to think differently, to think of other models of organization, other modes of human relations. Sometimes also the situation of handicap allows the setting up of a technical or scientific evolution. These initial improvements for people with disabilities benefit the entire human community. In this respect, the notion of social innovation is directly linked to the issue of disability. HANDICAP - SOCIAL UTILITY - LIVING TOGETHER Finally, each of us consider that disability is also a way of thinking about a model of society that could be more fair, adapted to everyone, with its strengths and weaknesses. A way that allows everyone to have a place and to play a role. This is why the notion of social utility will also be the third major topic dealt with during our meetings during this year of exchange and sharing. Our interest in this transnational project is justified by the desire to share, to discover other practices, to analyze the different contexts, the different approaches and methods. Training activities and meetings (seminars, visits) will be set up in order to achieve these objectives. Apart from the education professionals, politicians, families, ... who will be targeted, these exchanges will also involve people with disabilities. Indeed, sharing experiences and practices of each partner according to different actions will enrich each participant, to confront, in order to continue working on this issue of the perspective of the person with disability. During these exchanges (trainings, seminars, ...) each participant will be able to get new tools to be transmitted and to share with the local actors. This process is expected to modify the practices on the ground. These meetings will allow to reflect together on the notion of inclusive approach in order to involve all the actors concerned by the issue of disability. This project will also make it possible to meet different partners in a multidisciplinary approach. To facilitate the implementation of this project, transnational meetings will take place before, during and after the implementation of the actions. The framework of these meetings was reflected upstream of the project in order to be able to fit as best as possible to the expectations of each partner. Once the project is completed, we hope that this sharing of practices and experiments will be lived with the different local actors, in order to allow a more active citizenship for people with disabilities. For example, we hope that young people will go as volunteers in the partners organizations (kind of European Voluntary Service). All those experiences are planned to be shared afterwards, and this should contribute to change the view on the handicap as well as the inclusive process. Finally, these exchanges of practices should allow to have a better knowledge of each transnational partner in order to allow the development of other types of projects and to create tools to be disseminated more widely. FIRST STEP Once the project is completed, we would like to develop a longer-term project to create intellectual productions and organize dissemination events."

DESCRIPTION:The main aim of our project is to develop a toolkit and framework based on non-formal learning methods structuring and improving the empowerment of young people living with disabilities, who are often heavily disadvantaged (also NEET). This methodology would be designed based on empirical research conducted in the project and would contribute to and improve the work of organisations and professionals working on the youth field with this specific target group in a local youth work context. The methodology also tested in the pilot phase of the project and the results of the research will be published in a methodology handbook and distributed to reach all relevant stakeholders of the field. CONTEXT and BACKGOROUND:Association Co-Efficient, APCC and UNIAMOCI has a wide range of experience/expertise of involvement young people living with disabilities into local and international actions/learning experiences. Inclusion of young people living with disabilities is a main horizontal objective of our daily work, promoting the Independent Living Movement and empowering young people to be more self-sustainable and active citizens along the way. Our experience is that there is little emphasis on youth work with young people living with disabilities on a local level, which – in our opinion guarantees the most opportunities for valuable and permanent results. We also see the limitations which prohibit maximum usage of empowerment techniques due to a variety of reasons, therefore the need to study closely the issue and develop an adequate tool for empowerment of young people living with disabilities in a local context. OBJECTIVES:-to gather and structure existing knowledge, tools and methods relevant to the topic:- to develop and test an empowerment methodology handbook containing all the relevant expertise in the field of empowerment of young people living with disabilities-to increase the professional capacities and competences of participating partners and other organizations through the intellectual outputs and dissemination of the project ACTIVITIES OF THE PROJECT (24 MONTH DURATION)1. Kick-off meeting in Hungary2. 5 Transnational meetings in Italy, Hungary and Portugal for the joint and co-operative work of the partnership3. IO1: research – structuring and developing the methodology based on research with the target group and focus group discussions, seminars with experts4. Joint staff mobility - methodology development seminar: 5 days in Hungary5. IO2: methodology development including the pilot of the research (output: handbook)6. Dissemination: 3 national conferences organised by each partner to disseminate the results of the research and the pilotPARTICIPANTS:In the project the partnership will involve altogether 114 young people living with disabilities per country in the research and the pilot phase. The number of professionals working with young people living with disabilities who we will directly involve is 312.

MAGISTER project (Mental heAlth professionals’ learning community – continuous traininG program for practItionerS working with people affecTed by mEntal disoRders) brought together a strong partnership 3 NGOs (CONCORDIA Humanitarian Organization, Estuar Foundation from Romania and the Association for Cerebral Palsy from Coimbra, Portugal) and an Austrian university (Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences - FHV). The project aimed to improve quality of services provided by mental health practitioners at European level, in order to foster social inclusion of people affected by mental illnesses, anxiety and depression. The project has increased the capacity of mental health training delivery in Romania, Austria and Portugal, promoted the collaboration among mental health practitioners at European level and transfered good practices from Austria to Romania and Portugal. The joint development of training curricula improved practical competences, as well as the capacity to approach raising number of anxiety and depression cases, had offered work-based learning opportunities to professionals in mental health. The project has improved the capacity of 48 practitioners from Romania and Portugal in offering social services to people with mental disorders through short term joint staff training events. 11 among those 48 trainers also had the chance to participate at a ToT to further spread their knowledge.Over 250 professionals in mental health field at European have been informed throughout the project about the innovative toolkit of working instruments validated within the project and benefit continously of networking opportunities offered through the Online Practitioners Community.The project had a solid scientific base offered by the participation of the Austrian academic partner, which oversaw the validation of methods and working instruments and ensured evaluation in all phases of the project, including impact evaluation.Results: About 1.500 beneficiaries and their families will have access to better quality of services resulting in better social insertion. About 2.000 persons from public opinion, 350 practitioners, 30 trainers, 150 service providers and 15 authorities from 3 EU countries have been informed about project results. Partner organizations from Romania and Portugal have included the developed curricula in their existing training portfolio and will ensure training of other 120 professionals over a 3 year period, after the project's end.

"CONTEXT/BACKGROUNDAccording to ESMA (associated partner): ""Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviour that benefits individuals and communities for the greater social good (French and Russell-Bennett, 2014)SIM project tackles the challenge to improve the social inclusion of disadvantaged groups by developing social marketing pedagogical tools fully adapted for the social sector professionals.The direct target group of these pedagogical tools are the social educators in charge of improving the competences of disadvantage groups (midstream level) ; and their supervisors (strategic level).OBJECTIVESa) To improve the competences of social educators and coordinators to tackle the social exclusion of disadvantaged groups.b) To adapt social marketing methodologies and strategies to be used by the social services professionals in order to improve the quality of life of disadvantaged groups.c) To offer to the market free several SIM pedagogical tools: SIM handbook, SIM pedagogical strategy (based on the use of SIM case studies) and a SIM MOOC course.d) To explore the possibilities to develop a new field (or sub-field) of work to tackle the social inclusion: SOCIAL INCLUSION MARKETING.e) To contribute to lay the foundations of the first postgrade course of social marketing in Europe.NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSTarget groups addressed are two:1.Social sector educators: Midstream social marketing (Psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, employment mediators...)2.supervisors of educators, professionals responsible of planning and executing training and social programmes (Upstream social marketing or strategic level)19 learners of these two target groups will take part in a transnational learning activity during a week in Lugano. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIESO1. SIM Training needs assessment of social educators and its supervisors. This document states the real training needs of professional on social marketing and the preferred training methodology to be trained (the case study)O2. SIM handbook.Contents to carry out a course on social inclusion marketing. It can be used both by trainers to give the lessons and by educators as a self-study book. It is divided into two sections: a) introduction to social inclusion marketing; b) 4 real SIM case studies.O3. SIM pedagogical strategy: the case study.Systematic method for supporting the acquisition of SIM learning outcomes through the use of the case study methodology. The pedagogical strategy will be based on the adaptation of social marketing techniques and strategies to be used as a case studies for social sector professionals.O4. SIM MOOC COURSEThe most important SIM training materials and methodologies will be adapted and uploaded to the platform of University of Valencia to launch a course on social marketing fully adapted for social educators.In addition, the project will develop 4 multiplier events and a project plan formed by: a) management plan; b) dissemination and communication plan; c) an impact, sustainability and transferability plan.PROJECT METHODOLOGYSIM is a project where experts from two different disciplines (social marketing and social services) are willing to share their knowledge, skills and different perspectives to find innovative training solutions.Putting these two disciplines together, the project has coined a new term: social inclusion marketing (SIM).The two participating disability organizations will propose real social challenges to the two universities to be resolved by using the social marketing techniques. The social theoretical framework will be based on the ""quality of life model"" and ""individualized support model"". RESULTSThe project is expected to have tangible and intangible results on three levels:1. To improve the competences of 19 social educators and coordinators taking part in the transnational learning activity.2. Participant organizations. Enhancement of the participating organization know-how by developing SIM methodologies. Improvements of the quality of the services offered by the two social/disability organizations. The Universities will be able to improve its knowledge by developing marketing techniques with a more social approach. It is expected some elements developed by the project will be transfer to the University curricula.3. Community impact. Through the project dissemination activities, it is expected community-based and specific disabled/social services use, implement or benefit from the SIM training materials, tools or methodologies developed by the project. In addition, and thanks to ESMA and Università della Svizzera italiana, it is expected the project will have a huge impact among academic and researchers of the field of social marketing."