ACT-INCLUSIVE - Actors for Change Towards Inclusive Education

Despite a large amount of International and EU legislation supporting the right of all children to have an Inclusive Education (IE), the realisation of fully inclusive education systems is yet to happen. Schools across Europe are still ill-equipped to embrace the diverse range of learners’ support needs. Some of the barriers preventing fully inclusive education are negative attitudes and stereotypes, often caused by a lack of knowledge and acceptance of persons with disabilities. The ACT-INCLUSIVE project will fight against the attitudinal barriers that still preclude IE, by strengthening advocacy and empowering students with disabilities and the entire School Community. Using formal, non-formal and informal education activities, students, educational professionals, and school staff will have access to new knowledge and practical tools about Inclusiveness in school that will allow them to become Actors of Change Towards Inclusive Education. The project will start with a research activity where we will elucidate the issue at both EU and country levels. It will aim at identifying good practices (specifically in the field of awareness-raising and non-formal education activities), training needs and gaps. Then, the consortium will organise a series of awareness-raising and capacity-building workshops and events for the identified key target groups. The content of these workshops will be preceded by the production of 1) a Training and Awareness-Raising (TAR) Manual, based on the key learning outcomes for all key target groups. 2) an ACT-INCLUSIVE Toolbox, presenting non-formal education activities aiming at raising awareness and sharing knowledge about IE. 3) A Comics Book & Audiobook on Inclusive Communication. Finally, to multiply the reaching out the potential of the ACT-INCLUSIVE project and its outputs, (a) we will run an online Awareness-raising campaign & (b) we will organise a final EU Conference to further promote the project outputs.