Aim of the project: The project aims to help people who work in the education of hearing-impaired persons and to help hearing-impaired persons themselves (hereinafter HIP) achieve better understanding of the latest compensatory/assistive aids and assistive technologies for HIP. Justification of the necessity: The dynamic progress of communication technologies is intensively reflected in assistive technologies for HIP. Around the world, new and more sophisticated equipment is being developed to eliminate the communication barrier between HIP and the majority of intact society. But when it comes to hearing aids, there is such a varied offer that it is very difficult for the non-hearing to establish orientation and choose a hearing aid that best suits their physiological needs and expectations for the level and type of hearing impairment. Modern digital hearing aids offer the possibility of individual settings across a range of parameters that eliminate interference from surroundings, respecting the frequency limit of the auditory system of each individual, and other specifics. To use these options, however, it is necessary to be able to “read” the technical parameters and be able to properly adjust the hearing aid. The same is the case with other aids such as headphones with the transmission of information via infrared or by radio transmission. Induction/hearing loops, the installation and use of which are the most prominent example of the technology installed in buildings and other places where there is a greater concentration of people, allow hearing-impaired persons to receive an audio signal in their hearing aid through the electromagnetic field of a distributed induction/hearing loop directly and without any interference from the surroundings. In this area, there is an extensive range of equipment of different performance and quality, where the orientation is difficult for designers, investors and other interested professionals and stakeholders. Dynamically developing areas with the tremendous potential for use by HIP include “smart phones”. They already offer HIP a number of specific, very useful applications, and whose number is increasing day by day. All new technologies and aids are completely useful, but only when they are optimally selected and optimally adjusted individually. And for this, it is necessary to have adequate information. Ear doctors, the staff of counseling centers of HIP organizations, social service providers, and others do not have this information as needed. Altogether, they are focused only on a particular segment of the offer in response to what the manufacturer of the aid is offering. In most cases, an overview of the offers of other manufacturers is missing. Surveys conducted both among persons with hearing impairments and the aforementioned entities providing sales and consulting services in the segment show that the creation of a clear and systematically annotated catalog of assistive devices and assistive technologies, including a description of their optimal use, adjustments and maintenance, would be a great benefit. The applicant and its partners have been involved in this project for many years, have direct contacts with leading companies engaged in the development, manufacture, distribution and follow-up service in Europe, the US, as well as in China and Korea. They are therefore able to combine their efforts in creating a catalog of this sort. Their many years of experience in the education of hearing-impaired persons and the workers providing services to these persons qualify them to supplement the aforementioned catalog with a methodology for educating target groups. Project outputs: In addition to developing a methodology and interactive, annotated catalog that provides not just basic technical parameters, information and contacts, but also a wealth of video material – tutorials, examples of correct and incorrect applications, examples of good practice, assessments and user feedback on individual devices and technologies. The aim of the project is to use this methodology to directly train 90 professionals working in the field of assistive technologies and assistive devices, and 150 persons with hearing impairment in the home country of the applicant and in the countries of its partners. Target groups: 1) Professionals working in the field of assistive aids and other assistive technologies for HIP (doctors, professional consultants, staff of counseling centers for hearing-impaired persons, and dealers and service staff for assistive devices and assistive technologies for the non-hearing) 2) Providers of social services for hearing-impaired persons 3) Teachers, educational counselors and the technical staff of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools for the hearing impaired 4) The staff of centers for students with special educational needs at universities. 5) Designers, architects, investors, the staff of building authorities, 6) Hearing impaired persons(HIP)

In the EU member states, approximately 750.000 people are deaf from an early age and use a sign language as their preferred language. Deaf people not only have their own language, but also their own culture: Deaf Culture. The education of deaf children has a long -, and controversial - history going back centuries. Today, most hearing people do know about sign language, but they may know little or nothing about Deaf Culture, Deaf Education.Deaf Clubs, for centuries the centres of Deaf Culture, are disappearing quickly or have vanished already. Most deaf children are now mainstreamed. As a result, the heritage of Deaf people is at risk. In the Deaf Museums project, we will develop Open Educational Resources (OER), including an online training course in museum and general entrepreneurial skills for and by Deaf sign language users, to promote, preserve and share the Deaf Heritage.The Deaf Museums project has 2 long term goals:1.To promote, preserve and share the Deaf Heritage and by doing so: to promote Deaf awareness in the widest sense possible.2.To improve the employability of Deaf sign language users and the success of Deaf entrepreneurs by providing them with the necessary mindset and skills.In so doing, it will support the Erasmus+ goals for the participants in Strategic Partnerships: increased capacity and professionalism to work at EU/international level: improved management competences and internationalisation strategies; reinforced cooperation with partners from other countries and other cultures. Short term objectives of the project are:1.To develop online Open Educational Resources including a training course in basic Museum skills, for and by Deaf sign language users. The course will include examples, guidelines, signed stories and case studies, all produced and/or tested by the participants in the project. Included will be topics that state of the art mainstream museums are addressing: “Who are museums for and why are they working to engage new audiences? How do visitors respond emotionally to museum objects and spaces? And how can museums play a role in the pursuit of social justice, human rights, or health and well being?” (https://www.culturepartnership.eu/en/article/5-free-online-courses-for-museum-workers). Special attention will be given to the use of social media and ICT tools. All information will be in International Sign, written English, and as many of the partners’ signed and written languages as possible.2.To output case studies and good examples of museum exhibitions (e.g. about Deaf Culture, Deaf Art, Deaf people during WWII, Deaf migrants, Deaf in the European Union), produced by the participants in the project. The case studies and exhibitions will be included as examples in the training course and will be used to promote the project and disseminate its results both during and after the project's lifetime. 3.To research the state of the art in this field through surveys and interviews, to use the results to set up a platform for the promotion of real and virtual Deaf museums and Deaf Heritage initiatives, nationally, across Europe and globally, and to promote and support transnational collaboration in this field.Methodology and participating organisationsThe participating organisations represent a diverse mix of organisations from different fields of education, training, and other socio-economic sectors, including institutes of higher education, NGO's and SME's, from 7 European countries. In the consortium, participants from 'the Deaf world' and from the 'mainstream Museum world' will work together to produce high quality results and output by sharing and comparing each other's expertise. Our methodology will be based on peer-learning and challenge-based learning. Partners as well as several invited experts will share their expertise in specific fields. Partners will be asked to find solutions for the challenges that Museums in general, and Deaf Museums in particular have to deal with. They will learn practical entrepreneurial skills by planning, producing, promoting and evaluating the exhibitions that they will develop during the project. At each consortium meeting, they will be interviewed about the work they have done and about lessons learned. These interviews will be included in the OER and will be used to disseminate information about the project, both during and after the project's lifetime.Impact and potential longer term benefitsInterest in the Deaf Heritage and Deaf Culture and how to preserve and share these, has been growing rapidly in recent years. Therefore, we expect the project to have a major impact on Deaf people and Deaf Organisations in general, and on Deaf Museums and similar initiatives in particular. We also expect the project to have impact on mainstream Museum professionals. Long term benefits: bridging gaps between generations of Deaf people, between Deaf and hearing people, and between Deaf and mainstream Museum professionals.

On one hand, integrating young Deaf people into the job market is a key challenge; a high percentage of them are unemployed, and those who are employed are often in low-skilled and low-paid jobs. Nowadays, the education on offer for Deaf people in Europe is sparse, and heavily focused on school and apprenticeships, rather than long-term employment. With EU funding, it is necessary to export its concept across Europe, boosting training for Deaf people, helping them to find jobs.Every European citizen has got equal rights in participating at the active and democratic life of Europe and language is the most important instrument to communicate and convey ideas and feelings. For this reason, since Sign Languages are the mother tongues of many Deaf youth, it is important to promote the use of Sign Languages in every context in order to facilitate their empowerment and inclusion.On the other hand, the concept of a museum is no longer just a physical place where artworks are collected and housed, but is conceived as an active institution that should offer a diversified range of services to make art and culture accessible to all people with disabilities. Museums need to adapt to a diversifying society and shall offer accessibility to inclusive, comprehensive and creative educational experiences that embrace and foster cultural, social diversity, and provide to everyone the ability to live and participate equally in a pluralistic society. Based on this framework, the main project objective is to find ways to diversify the museum, its interpretative tools and practices in order to become a tool for Deaf youth social inclusion. For this purpose, the partnership built an educational model engaging Deaf youth in art training for becoming museum guides for Deaf audience, so to favor their social and working inclusion, and the engagement of Deaf audience in the museums. The activities implemented in Austria, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia were as follows:-Context analysis in six partner countries collecting 30 existing learning experiences, services and activities to enable Deaf youth to learn about art and to increase the engagement of Deaf audience in the museums and in cultural activities. The results from the context analysis, in terms of knowledge, competences and approaches, represented the first contribution to the development of MADE educational model.-5-days learning activity addressed to 16 (and 6 additional participants) young Deaf and hearing trainers experienced in art disciplines or Deaf education from all partners countries in order to build new training model and curriculum to engage Deaf youth in art training for becoming museum guides.-Development of MADE educational model for Deaf youth, a tailor-made training programme including 4 learning modules aimed at enabling Deaf youth to acquire transversal skills and professional competences to become a museum guide. The Educational model and learning materials are available in the partners languages.-Development of a Toolkit meant as a virtual space hosting the learning and teaching materials developed within the Educational Model, available both in written partner languages and national Sign Languages as well as International Sign Language addressed to young Deaf trainees and trainers.-Implementation of six national study circles involving 60 Deaf and hearing trainers, experts in the field of art and Deaf teaching, museum institutions representatives for analyzing the Educational Model adapting it to the national contexts.-Testing of MADE educational model in six partners countries through the implementation of at least 30 teaching hours and the simulation of museum tour involving 85 Deaf youth and 27 Deaf and hearing trainers in cooperation with national museums.-Six multiplier events in the partner countries, involving 150 participants, aimed at presenting the MADE educational model advantages and methodology to the Deaf community, stakeholder organisations such as museum institutions, educational and training centers, public institutions working on the field of social inclusion and labour market.The main target groups involved in the activities were: Deaf youth, young Deaf and hearing trainers, museum institutions, VET providers working in the field of Deaf education, Deaf community and general public interested to the project topics.The project results positively impacted on the MADE target groups who directly or indirectly participated to the project activities. Mainly the young Deaf people benefited by the project results empowering their soft skills and professional competences so to undertake a new job opportunity. The other target groups benefited from the project activities by increasing their awareness of the need to diversify and offer educational programmes adapted to the specific needs of Deaf young people and by expanding opportunities to make art accessible to the whole Deaf community using sign language.

The primary objectives of this project were to bring together the strengths and knowledge of schools-families-students-universities-social advocacy groups- governments-companies-hospitals-and volunteers in our partner countries in terms of health and care issues related to hearing abilities of students with deafness and hearing impairments in order to increase the lacking practical support and application capabilities of special education schools. In this Project, by working with special education needs children’s teachers (SENTs), we enabled them to learn the best practices and educational methods via guiding them in terms of materials, vocational education, and problems of hearing impaired children and their families. We educated the hearing impaired and their families on auditory health and care. We pursued the objectives of training SENTs, our target group, in primary and secondary schools through intensive training direct programs. Our direct target group also included deaf and hearing impaired (DHI) students with and their families.The educational sessions included ear –hearing examinations as well as lectures given by speech therapists, audiologists, and hearing specialists on exterior, medial, and interior ear structures and functions according to the level of each group. Moreover, information on sanitary hearing devices, requirements of / for cochlear implants and hearing aids, necessary care and maintenance were provided to all participants. The educations provided were recorded and open to access in English, German, Spanish, Slovenian, and Turkish and their corresponding sign languages at our interactive, multilingual and deaf accessible web site.An educational setting was formed by bringing together and enabling mutual cooperation of SENTs and various specialists related to hearing, hearing devices and maintenance . Our weak aspects and issues forming a threat to DHI children were the main points addressed in the project. Our strengths were sharings made with our partners. The conditions in Turkey regarding auditory health were determined to be better. Related services were better and free of charge. However, cooperation among diverse institutions were determined to be poor and in need of further improvement. Cooperation with universities would have significant contributions to enable SENTs to be up to date. A consensus was reached to hand in a proposal to the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) to direct DHI schools for the hearing impaired for vocational education and training. Moreover, physiotherapy halls in DHI schools were considered to be a necessity. Likewise, sSound therapy rooms are also to be established in DHI schools. Thus, MoNE will be handed in a proposal to employ at least two sound therapists in these schools. A handbook for sound therapy in these schools is also to be acquired. Sign language has a significant role in the personal development of especially the totally hearing impaired and ao of those who have advanced hearing impairment. Therefore, MoNE will be handed in another report in order to prevent quite normal children to receive sign language education. Among the major outcomes of the present project are the video shootings, major factor to increase project impact, on diverse topics in which DHI related issues were addressed. The latest score were 16 videos and this number is still increasing. These video shootings will be continued according to emerging new problems and possible solutions.An open access web site based on the data gathered throughout the project will serve as a data bank to be used by all the hearing impaired throughout the world. This web site will be active for at least five years. Moreover, the common project tasks will available at the web sites of all partners. Hence, those in need of the data obtained from the present project are going to be able to obtain and benefit from these for many years. The mobility program, meetings, articles written, brochures and booklets printed have contributed to the efficiencies of the teachers working at DHI schools. The outcomes were shared with other DHI schools and universities in order to provide a larger distribution of the outcomes and prolonged use of the insights gained.A further aim, publication of at least three articles, is currently available on the web site. These have significant importance as they will enable the hearing impaired to determine their strategy and future actions/decisions. Among the tasks to audit the project, a final and a semi-final conference were held and the brochures, articles, and booklets were dispersed to a large community. Overall, considering project activities and outcomes, all aims determined at the beginning of the project were successfully accomplished.

<< Objectives >>Through the Financial Signs project, deaf youth have acquired valuable transferable skills, financial competences and increased financial literacy which make them more attractive to potential employers; they are more resilient, demonstrate greater self-determination and independence. The partnership (from Austria, Italy, Slovakia and Hungary) work to develop a clickable map, a video toolkit and a blended learning training package to enable deaf youth to acquire financial literacy skills.<< Implementation >>Our partnership researches good deaf-friendly and accessible practices in financial services, support and training and include them in a clickable map. We develop and film 40 animated tutorial videos in Sign Languages on financial literacy topics. We will develop a deaf-friendly blended leaning training package in an inclusive and participative team setting (LTTA) and pilot it with 40 deaf youth participants. In events and workshops, we showcase our results in all participating countries.<< Results >>Financial Signs Clickable Map: A collection of good deaf-friendly and accessible practices in financial services, support and training. Financial Signs Toolkit: 40 accessible tutorial videos in 5 Sign Languages with plain language texts on topics relating to financial literacy. Blended learning: The package includes a curriculum and handbook (methodology sheets, training materials, incorporating the clickable map and video toolkit) in English, German, Italian, Slovak and Hungarian.