The employment rate of young people with disability is half the current rate among individuals of the same age in Europe. This deplorable state of affair is not in our view resulting solely from the tense economic situation. In hindsight it appears that granting young people with disability with a full-fledged access to education, training and employment has always been a problem for given member states of the European community.The European Union as well as member states have ratified the UN Convention of the right of persons with disabilities. This strong symbolic act is meant to convey the message that people with disability shall no longer be considered as an exception to the rule but rather as full-fledged citizens whose rights have to be promoted.This political act indicates that non-discrimination and promotion of fundamental rights are a common task. Politicians, economic actors, media and citizens alike are all responsible in this endeavor.Meanwhile the European Union and its member states are promoting through law and regulations that anyone from the northern to the southern part of the continent as well as from the western to the eastern part implement policies and strategies that aim at securing career paths.What is it all about?Access to employment is intricate especially for people with disability as redundancies, transitions between professional activities and unemployment, access to vocational training and returning to work can be hard to manage. Career paths have therefore to be secured.In order to do so, it requires to lay the ground for a realistic and above all lasting individual project, to identify the essential stages and to support the person.EASPD, EMPLEA, SCUOLA VIVA and L’ADAPT are complementary organizations considering their competencies and skills. They are bound together through their DNA contained in their institutional projects. We claim our commitment to translate into proposals and actions the principles enshrined in the international convention of the right of persons with disabilities.With this project we establish a link between implementing the rights of young people with disability and shaping strategies to secure career paths from skill developments to integration in work.Providing security for career paths and supporting employment is our first proposal. Indicators for monitoring and recording good practices will lead to editing two documents:- A guideline for providing security for career paths and supporting employment in Europe,- A training resource for professionals involved in these matters.Our second proposal is related to the training of 120 professionals from our national networks and beyond. We will spread information and good practices gathered through observation and edited in guides in order to support people with disability in work.Our third proposal is to extend to Europe the concept of the week for the employment of people with disability which has been carried in France for more than 18 years in a row. This event will become the European Disability Employment Week (EDEW)EDEW is a set of actions such as jobdatings, employment fora and handicafés carried with companies. They are aiming at facilitating the encounter between employers and job seekers with disability.EDEW is also consisting of streets actions in order to raise public awareness.We would also like to edit a guideline based upon the best practices of every partner involved in the European week for the employment with people with disability.This guideline will be used as a grid for the training of 100 activists: volunteers, employees, managers and so on.We aim at contributing to reassess the situation of young people with disability regarding their access to training and lasting employment.This European initiative will synthesize our skills and good practices and will disseminate them.We will review the programme on a yearly basis in order to evaluate our action. International conferences will be held in order to share our experiences. We will make sure that they are fully accessible.

The employment rate of young people with disability is half the current rate among individuals of the same age in Europe. This deplorable state of affair is not in our view resulting solely from the tense economic situation. In hindsight it appears that granting people with disability with a full-fledged access to education, training and employment has always been a problem for given member states of the European community. The European Union as well as member states have ratified the UN Convention of the right of persons with disabilities. This strong symbolic act is meant to convey the message that people with disability shall no longer be considered as an exception to the rule but rather as full-fledged citizens whose rights have to be promoted. This political act indicates that non-discrimination and promotion of fundamental rights are a common task. Politicians, economic actors, media and citizens alike are all responsible in this endeavor. Meanwhile the European Union and its member states are promoting through law and regulations that anyone from the northern to the southern part of the continent as well as from the western to the eastern part implement policies and strategies that aim at securing career paths. What is it all about? Access to employment is intricate especially for people with disability as redundancies, transitions between professional activities and unemployment, access to vocational training and returning to work can be hard to manage. Career paths have therefore to be secured. In order to do so, it requires to lay the ground for a realistic and above all lasting individual project, to identify the essential stages and to support the person. Securing career path, promoting supported employment, promoting the European Disability Empolyment week (EDEW), is the way we choose to sensibilise and act on/with entreprises and society. We want to act and measure. It is the reason why we promote in this program not only actions but the way to produce evaluation of what have been clearly done on the ground. EASPD, EMPLEA, SCUOLA VIVA and L’ADAPT are complementary organizations considering their competencies and skills. They are bound together through their DNA contained in their institutional projects. We claim our commitment to translate into proposals and actions the principles enshrined in the international convention of the right of persons with disabilities. The have been the promotors of DESC1. Our prposition is to go by DESC 2 a step beyond with those same organisations and their partners. With this project we establish a link between implementing the rights of young people with disability , the economical reality, the state of play of the labour market but also the necessary need of change in the way to move and act for the service providers. Our proposition is based on three axes First Axe : To experiment on the ground 150 career path and supported emplyoment. To create an evaluation method. To produce each years, results, analysis and success stories. To associate 40 partners to realise those career path. To work with 40 entreprises. As a matter of fact, 120 professionals from our national networks have been trained during DESC 1 to securing path careers and supported employment. We expect to train 40 more professionnals. Second axe : To associate partners who work in the field of health, culture, citizenship, housing, etc... This way we want to promote a global approach to secure career paths. We want to create a good practices guide to develop sustainablity and awardness in the paractices of those partners. We expect to train 40 of them to securing career path and supported employment. Third axe : To produce a method to support the sustenaible implementation of EDEW in the networks at a national level for the members of the consortium and their partners (funders, politics, entreprises , civil society, associations). We want to measure the efficiency and the quality of the networks we will contribute to create. We will promote sensibilisation actions about EDEW in each country wich is apart of this program. For each axe a delivrable. Each delivrable will propose an analysis method and a measure of the results This European initiative will synthesize our skills and good practices and will disseminate them. We will review the programme on a yearly basis in order to evaluate our action. International conferences will be held in order to share our experiences. We will make sure that they are fully accessible.

"The project ""Field Aperture : Inclusion in Society by the Arts"" (ISA) intends to act on: - professionnal practices - communication by the arts and culture - the way to deliver training and scholl' contents to young people and adults In an other way, the 6 members of the consortium intend: - to change the perception of the Society - to impact the education and training systems on the perception of people with disabilities - to improve impowerment of people with disabilities - to promote the UNCRPD The 6 members of the consortium are LADAPT (France - coordinator of ISA), Cope Foundation (Ireland), EASPD (Belgium), Horizon 2000 asbl (Belgium), NASO (Bulgaria), Kézenfogva Alapítvány (Hungary). Those service providers are delivering quality services to PWD and in society awareness in the fields of education, work, arts, culture, housing, training, health, etc. The partners have a very high level of expertise and efficient networks. The members of the consortium are clearly engaged in the european political and economical envronnments, as well as at a national level. The ISA project is built around 3 issues and the production of 5 deliverables: Issue 1, to work with cinema, advertising and theatre scools and universities to developp an inclusive and respectuous implementation of the UNCRPD's articles 8 and 30: # O1 - Guide of the european good practices in matter of inclusion by the arts (deliverable 1) # O2 - Tool box ""Inclusion by the arts"" for the teachers and professors working at school and universities (deliverable 2) Issue 2, to act on the schooling environment to adapt the contents and, by this way, promote inclusion by the arts # O3 - Guide to sustain teachers and professors to promote art as an inclusive pedagogy (déliverable 3) # O4 - Inquiries of experience feedback with the students (deliverable 4) Issue 3, to promote Field Aperture on the ground. Each consortium member will organise at least one Field Aperture event a year, using the following method: # O5 - Process guide ""Field Aperture"" (deliverable 5). 3 events / conferences will be carried out during all the programme. They will be organised as follows: - in the morning, international dissemination conference - in the afternoon, Field Aperture event The 3 events are: # E1 - France (june 2018) # E2 - Hungary (march 2019) # E3 - Belgium (june 2020) closing conference. About the method: we have decided for a participative way. Each member of the consortium is the pilot of one of the intellectual production and the linked deliverables. In an other way, each member is responsible for animation on the ground of the stakeholders. It has to create and implement efficient networks which whom they will promote on the ground the programme. The service providers and the stakeholders are associated to promote and improve their service offering. By the way, we absolutely want to work with partners which are efficient in the artistic area and events production. To measure results and impacts, we will produce deliverables all along the programme, which will be experimented during the 3 years. Due to our quality engagements, we will be carefull to improve our actions and offers. To us, the targets and the long term benefits are: - to involve schools and universities in a long term partnership - the improvement of the contents delivered to adults and youngs - a change about the perception concerning the use of arts as an efficient way to contribute to improve inclusion for PWD - the influence of arts in the communication to improve non discrimination - the participation of the creation of a european network about Field Aperture - the creation of Field Aperture european events - the development of a real long-term strategy turned to the mainstream"

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.

"One in six people in the EU has a disability, representing 80 million people who, as a result are often prevented from fully and equally participating in society and contributing to the economy. In 2006, the U.N. published the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability (UNCRPD). This universal, legally binding standard recognised that every person must be empowered to participate in society and live life to their fullest potential. This was the ethos that drove this project from its conception right through to its completion. A recently published study on 'Culture, Cities and Identity in Europe” (2016) by the EESC recognises that culture is a tool for integration and inclusiveness for people who have ""special needs"". The partners that came together to drive this project are all exemplars in their own countries for taking actions to ensure that people with disabilities (PWD) are given the opportunities to explore and fulfill their potential in the arts. They all share the vision that the arts is an important means of inclusion and expression for people with disabilities. The Council of Europe’s Disability Action Plan, the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020, The Charter of Fundamental Rights, and the EU Convention on Human Rights also gave a framework for this project. The consortium was made up of six partners from four European Countries all of whom brought a complementary skill set that was essential to the delivery of this project, most of whom also had significant experience in delivering European Project work. The organisations these partners came from were EASPD, ENCC, L’ADAPT, Scuolo Viva and CIT. The Project took place over 24 months, with 5 Transnational Meetings, 2 multiplier events and one Teacher/Training Learning (TTL) event resulting in 4 outputs. At the time of application we had proposed to complete 5 outputs, however one of these was not approved.Our aim was to innovate and implement joint initiatives with PWD, promoting cooperation, peer learning and exchanges of experience at a European level, with a focus on the horizontal priority of social inclusion for adult learners with a disability. It also prioritised extending and developing educators' competences and improved and extended the supply of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of the individual. This project developed innovative outputs to support all stakeholders to develop a more integrated, inclusive Europe. The project has achieved its objectives of improving and increasing awareness of obligations, rights, policy, law and practice. It addressed the identified gaps by improving access to education and connecting learners with more opportunities. The project addressed these priorities in three key areas:1) Information and Research:This was done through the collation of general text and accessible information on European policy, law, frameworks and examples of good practice on inclusive arts education at an EU level (3.2 IO2 Development of good practices Guidelines). This resulted in the development of Good Practice Guidelines for arts organisations, arts educators, cultural centres and service providers. Signatories to these guidelines were acknowledged with an ""accreditation logo"" (1.1.2 CIAE Certification). The accreditation process was overseen by three of our partner organisations post project completion.2) Publication and Dissemination This was done through the population and development of a newly created Knowledge Centre on Inclusive Arts in the D-Lot platform (3.3 IO3 Development of Knowledge Centre) which was a pre-existing accessible platform that is maintained by EASPD, the dissemination of Good Practice Guidelines through D-Lot and other existing networks and the development of an EASY READ TOOLKIT to support access and engagement of PWD.3) Innovation and ParticipationThis was done through the development of the EASY READ Toolkit (3.4 IO4 Development of Easy Read Toolkit) which supported the connection between PWD, educators, arts organisations, service providers and cultural centres. This helped bridge the gap between education and employment. This project led to improved opportunities for adult learners with disabilities, improved diversity of those engaging with arts education leading to further diversity and opportunity in the workplace. The project was an innovative, transversal and integrated approach to addressing social inclusion, enhancing access, participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners."