AAA | Methodology and international working group

AAA | Methodology and international working group

‍Dear  ‍,

in our second newsletter, we share with you how we created our methodology to strengthen the political activism of people with disabilities. All the input came from an international group of young activists with disabilities. The entire process was very inspiring and informative - for project partners as well as for participants of the international work group. To that end, we also give you an overview of what is in store for AAA in the coming months and how these tasks will be divided. Spoiler: It will be about the training for youth workers  

 

Also follow our social media channels, linked here as well as on our website. For questions, please write us an e-mail or contact us via social media!

 

Lutz Peschke (coordinator)

Noemi Kolloch, Janina Scholz for the AAA consortium


First Online IWG Meeting

‍The first international working group meeting - abbreviated as IWG - took place at the end of April. Each project partner brought two participants from their respective country to the first online meeting. The participants were young activists with disabilities who were willing to develop a methodology for AAA.

 

This methodology aims to strengthen the political participation of citizens with disabilities. Specifically, it should: Promote awareness of the link between individual experiences of deprivation/exclusion and socio-economic circumstances arising from social and political structures that give rise to exclusion and reproduce empowerment, develop strategies for political participation in society to claim necessary structures and services, promote emancipation, collective representation and empowerment of participants.

‍LTTA in Cyprus

‍From 16.05 to 18.05 AAA met young activists with disabilities from countries like Spain, Portugal and more in Nicosia to discuss issues such as inclusive education, equal access to employment, disability and gender. The group had important discussions on how to strengthen the political participation of people with disabilities in Europe and how to raise awareness.

 

The discussions among them showed that we can only achieve something together to tackle major structural problems such as education politics, fair access to employment and making the public environment more accessible for people with disabilities. Each participant emerged from the meeting with more experience and a greater wealth of knowledge.

Completion of Methodolgy

‍The methodology was completed with an emphasis on coming to an understanding regarding the prior activities like the LTTA in Cyprus. This all will accumulate to the Handbook and In-Service Training for Youth Workers, this group assisted partners in addressing both previously acknowledged and unidentified needs. These participants encouraged the growth of the technique that was developed to aid youth workers and equip them to use it to encourage young people's political participation.

 

The creation of this international working group was essential to the success of the entire project since it allowed the target audience, young people with disabilities, to design and create the project results.


What is in store for AAA now?

Now that the methodology has been completed, we can move on to the next section of AAA, working with youth workers. The first activity will be focused on the development of a handbook to systematise and further disseminate the methodology.

 

It will: promote awareness across Europe and beyond on the nefarious psychological and socioeconomic effects of ableism; present and reflect on the process of development of this methodology, demonstrating the importance of the active political engagement of people with disabilities; present the proposals that arose during that process in terms of strategies, activities and practices to promote the social and political participation in this context; and it will define guidelines for the replication of the methodology so that it can be used to promote the political participation of differently abled citizens by institutions across the world.

 

The second activity will focus on the development of the In-Service Training Activism Against Ableism for youth workers. This training aims to prepare youth workers to implement this methodology with their beneficiaries. It will be based on the experience of creating the methodology and on the handbook itself, creating innovative and appealing resources that can be used by partner/associated organisations, the institutions part of the European and national networks and all who may be interested. These materials will be made available in the project’s website.

 

The third activity will be a LTTA in Greece next year in which this In-service training programme will be implemented with youth workers. This LTTA will be a workshop throughout three days. All materials will be afterwards translated in the specific partner languages.

 

‍‍AAA – Activism Against Ableism

This Project is funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union (2022-1-DE04-KA220-YOU-000087327)