Non-Formal Education Activities for the inclusion of people with disabilities

<< Background >>We applied for this project out of the desire to help young people with various disabilities integrate much more easily into their communities. Many people do not know how to collaborate or communicate with people with disabilities and as a result they feel isolated and marginalized. Own resources are not enough to reach the target group in a qualitative way.Each disability has a need, its own approach that can only be achieved by working in this field. This is how the internal need to increase expertise in working with young people with disabilities appeared.A partnership was formed between the organization from Croatia which works more with young people with mental disabilities, Cyprus - young people with mental disabilities, Romania - with young people with visual disabilities. We approached the need to help the community through the trainings developed at the local level. Thus, the need to help other organizations to work with young people with disabilities is great because many of them do not have qualified staff to organize specific activities. More than that, even at the level of each community, there were requests from the youth workers to be helped to organize activities for young people with disabilities.<< Objectives >>Through the project, we wanted to promote inclusive activities for people with disabilities through non-formal education.Thus, we achieved the following objectives that we proposed when we conceived the project:1. To create a brochure that includes a series of non-formal work methods that aim to integrate people with disabilities in various activities;2. To train 56 youth workers at the local level from Romania, Cyprus and Croatia, 11 more people than we initially proposed;3. Let's involve 223 young people, 80 of whom have different types of disabilities.<< Implementation >>Within our project, we have implemented several activities:A5 - I created a handbook that contains a series of information about the project, but also the most important - aspects / methods that, with the help of art as therapy, improve non-formal activities for young people with disabilities in particular.A6 – I organized an international course where I trained 12 youth workers from partner organizations how to work with people with disabilities.A7 – We organized local training courses in which we trained 44 youth workers from the local level who implemented activities in their communities.A8 - We organized local activities with young people, such as inclusive workshops attended by 223 young people, 80 of whom - with different disabilities.A9 – We evaluated the learning process and the success we achieved.<< Results >>1. A Handbook that is accessible free of charge on the project's website, facebook and also made available and in printable to all youth workers from the 3 partner organizations. It is available in English, Romanian, Croatian and Greek;2. 56 youth workers were trained to carry out non-formal activities with young people, including young people with limited opportunities;3. 33 NGOs / institutions have become more inclusive because they have youth workers trained to work with people with disabilities;4. 223 young people were involved in non-formal education activities where they experienced various inclusive activities.