All Inclusive – Overcoming Barriers to Participation is an innovative strategic partnership project for youth. It comprises of six partners in three different countries: Finland, Italy and North-Macedonia. The partners all work with mobility projects and/or young people with disabilities and are very keen on developing new methods on how we can enable mobility projects to the who are now excluded.For various reasons young people with disabilities are often excluded from international co-operation, for example, from Erasmus + mobility projets. By disabled in this project we mostly mean people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. This diverse group of people will need special support to be able to attend mobility activities. For some youngsters with disabilities it is not even possible to travel and participate in the above-mentioned experiences, for example, because of multiple and complex disabilities. The organizations taking part in this project feel, that there is a lack of knowledge and know-how about how one should design and execute mobility projects with young people with disabilities.The project will develop two intellectual outputs. The first one is a step-by-step guideline which supports the participation of young people with disabilities to mobility activities and take into consideration the special needs of the target group. These guidelines will include the whole process of a mobility project, from planning to evaluation. The guidelines include methods of empowering young people with disabilities, supporting their communication by using different methods. This will include support needed for them to be able to take part in a mobility project.The second intellectual output is a method on how young people with disabilities who are not able to travel, could still meaningfully take part in a mobility project. There can be different reasons for this, sensory defensiveness can hinder the person’s ability to function in public places, the needed support can be so great, that it is not feasible in a mobility project or challenging behaviour can be so severe that traveling is not possible. From our perspective these challenges do no mean that the person in question could not participate in a meaningful way to a mobility project.Both the method and the guidelines will be produced together with the parter organizations, other stakeholders and the young people themselves. The professionals taking part in this project will mostly be teachers, youth workers and other instructors. The young people are young people with disabilities in different situations. Some of them live in an residential unit, some of them take part in daily activities, some of the live at home or by themselves and some of the go to school.Besides the intellectual outputs the organizations in this project will train youth workers young people to use them. During the project the organizations will also develop a mobility project for young people with disabilities and there will be multiplier events in each of the countries. Our goal in this project is also to raise awareness of the possibilities for disables young people for international co-operation. Yes, there are challenges, but it is not impossible to build a true participatory mobility project for the young people in question. All the organizations in this project see this as an important thing and they have seen, that it doesn’t happen by itself. There are actions needed to make this happen.

Educational program in European schools with special needs is not as developed as it should be. Students with disabilities are often pushed to the sidelines, and yet they are sentient beings who want to live in an equal opportunity society. Our students have less opportunities to be included in international projects and projects, which would give them skills for life. United Nations conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities states that persons with disabilities should be treated with dignity, they should not be discriminated and should be given appropriate education. Based on stated above, schools with special needs and special programs have decided to team up in an international project. We wish to include our students in activities, which will help them develop independence, responsibility, social skills and acquire language skills. We named our project G.R.E.E.N. because we want to keep in mind the following objectives: Global - Recyclable - Environment - Employment – Nature. We chose to make the environment the main focus of our project because, as scientists have been warning us, we are in a state of planetary emergency. Uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, waste accumulation and excessive consumption lead to great climate changes that are already happening. We want to raise awareness in the student that it is important to take care of the planet in which we live. We want to encourage them to become aware of the impact an individual’s actions has on the health of the environment and the wellbeing of society, and teach them how to design sustainable products that create less waste. Many of these students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, making it difficult for them to take advantage of cross-cultural exchanges and projects that would equip them with lifelong skills. With the activities we wish to approach the goals of the program “Education and training 2020” that provides a long term goal of increasing innovation and enabling employability to vulnerable groups. We wish to encourage our students to pass from passive viewers or observers to active individuals who are involved in caring for a better tomorrow. The partnership will include six countries: France, Germany, Latvia, Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia. Students involved are aged 6 to 26 and have disabilities in different areas. All the countries included have similar needs, problems and limitations in our work. We also have the same long term goal for our students – living as independently as possible. Although new technologies and online tools have increased the prevalence of remote learning, we believe that face-to-face contact and experiential learning activities still have an essential place in education. Based on the exchange our students will learn about different cultures, acquire foreign language knowledge and meet pears from other countries. Combination of different teaching methods and curriculums, that each school uses in raising awareness of the importance of the environment, will provide new knowledge and methods. We have organized round tables and workshops which will expose students to various topics and enable them to participate in hands-on activities. These could be used and transformed to different areas of education. Knowledge and experience on the importance of clean environment gained during the project, will be multidisciplinary included in further educational process by the teachers. Not only will project benefit its participants, but we expect it to have a lasting positive impact on the wider community. We wish to reduce the amount of waste and by that the consumption of consumers. Students will see that they can do a lot of things by themselves. Activities that will be performed in the gatherings have been carefully planned. We payed attention to individual needs of the students. We pursued a goal to include all students as much as possible in the project. Students will be encouraged to treat the environment responsibly by various activities, such as debates, different workshops, making of teaching aids. Teachers are going to help the students in communication and at their language skills with various visual materials. Teachers will gain new knowledge, methods and strategies, which will help them in their education process. In the end of the project we will publish a manual with examples of best practice and methods that will be presented to local educational institutions. Students will also gain new knowledge, skills, independence and responsibility that will have a great impact on their further independent life, which is the goal we all wish to achieve. We want to show students that each individual can develop their abilities and thus contribute to society. We believe that together we can make life long changes for wider society.