"Volunteering has a positive impact on economic development, social inclusion, and volunteers as individuals. It contributes to the social connections, and explores its role in helping to foster civic engagement as well as delivering public goods. Through volunteering community can become more cohesive, safer, and stronger. On a personal level volunteering can improve the life and career paths of individual volunteers, as it has the power of increasing their self-esteem, enhancing various skills and capacities, and becoming healthier physically and mentally. Through volunteering social isolation can be reduces, as volunteers become more involved with and in the community.But even if the positive impact of volunteering in the field of social inclusion and its empowering effects on individuals are clear, all across Europe disadvantaged target groups, especially disabled people, are less likely to volunteer. The reasons are manifold: people with disabilities don’t volunteer due to barriers of access and lack of opportunities, as well as a lot of disadvantaged see volunteering as a less than desirable alternative to paid work. Some also associate volunteering with stigma, as they already have less opportunities of obtaining paid employment. So the opportunities and the value volunteering are not used to its full potential by and for people with disabilities. But with the right understanding, awareness and support from volunteer managers and organisations, those with additional needs can bring a broad and often unique range of skills and experience as committed volunteers.Driven by the strong belief, that everyone, regardless of age, culture, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, social status or disability, is able to volunteer and should have the opportunity to do so, 4 non-profit organisations from 4 different countries representing expertise in volunteer work or working with people with disabilties formed this partnership ""Improve"". Together they want to identify and develop methods and ways to promote “Inclusive volunteering”. Their joint vision is, that disabled persons, especially with mental or learning disabilities, will participate actively in volunteering and not just being ""objects"" of volunteering. Volunteering can help people living with a disability to recognise and improve their existing skills, and develop new ones. This is important for disabled people who are often made to feel as though they can only be the recipients of care rather than active contributors. Volunteering can turn this perception around and focuses on people’s strengths and abilities. Therefor Volunteering is also a powerful social tool of inclusion: it introduces disabled people to new networks, experiences, and learning opportunities. They also gained key employment skills such as time management, communications and working in a team, or learn new “professional” skills like service, retail, gardening etc. – depending on the volunteer work they are involved in. Additionally volunteers with a disability find that volunteering is a way of ‘repaying’ and reciprocating the help they have received. In this way inclusive volunteering also raises the profile of disability in a positive way in everyday life.This positive impact of volunteering is the joint vision and practical experience of the involved partners, but it is not the reality for most disabled people yet. So the partners involved want to share their experiences and expertise in order to identify ways, methods and strategies to improve the participation of people with disabilities in volunteering, and to create an inclusive environment for volunteering. The result of this transnational IMProVE project will be an E-Book including an input on inclusive volunteering, the learning results between project partners, on how to engage people with disabilities in the community, the barriers and succes factors of inclusive volunteering, the benefits of inclusive volunteering, the impact it has on local communities and individuals, recommendations on how to implement inclusive volunteering, and of course many concrete examples of good practice. This E-Book will be disseminated on local, regional, national and international level in order to inspire many volunteer organisations and organisations working with people with disabilities, but also individuals to use volunteering as a powerful pathway into social inclusion."

<< Background >>People with intellectual disabilities tend to have more sedentary lifestyles than the general population. Regular physical activity is of medical and social importance, helping to reduce risks of cardiovascular diseases and improving functioning in everyday life. Exergames have in general been envisioned for promoting physical activity, but for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) most of them are not user-friendly and the persons assisting them (staff and relatives) frequently does not have the required knowledge and skills to promote its use.<< Objectives >>MOVE-IT will create, develop and validate a new learning program tailored to the needs of professional staff and relatives to promote the use of exergaming through new information and communication technologies (ICT) in people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities.<< Implementation >>The training program will be composed of two main parts. The first part will introduce the learners on the importance of performing and maintaining an active lifestyle through the implementation of physical exercise routines, including practical examples and programs to perform physical activity tailored to individuals with IDs. The second part of the training program will introduce learners on the application of technologies in the form of exergames, with practical examples and links to available solutions to implement physical activity routines supported by ICTs.<< Results >>The project aims to involve more than 100 end-users (individuals with ID, professionals and relatives) in many stages of the project to co-create, develop and validate an innovative training framework for promoting their skills and competences to implement and sustain physical activity programs. The project will be focused on the use of ICT Tools (Apps and assistive technologies), developing adapted learning materials and activities to promote several exercising programs. All the produced materials will be available through an electronic platform in English and the languages of the participant countries (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Norwegian).Short term impacts of the project will be to improve the physical activity habits of the persons with ID by providing a specific training on the importance of keeping active, types of exercises and exercising programs based on ICT Tools. Besides, the involved staff and relatives will develop competences on the implementation of physical activity programs and how to use ICTs to motivate and engage persons with IDs to maintain these habits. Executing the physical activity and gaining the habits is as important as the movement execution quality, for example to avoid incorrect postures and possible injuries), so it is important to focus on the education of the movement and reinforce it with the ITC based exergames.In the long term we envision to deliver a flexible methodology, program and resources that improve the quality of life of persons with ID in the dimensions of social inclusion and well-being.

Services for people with disabilities have traditionally been provided in segregated institutions. They are moving from institutional care to community living requires community based services to Supports Model for people with disabilities, offering people with disabilities choice over where and with whom they live and providing the necessary supports for community participation and independently living in the community.This reorientation changes the roles of service users and providers. Rather than being service ‘recipients’, people become active participants in planning and obtaining the supports they feel will best meet their needs and goals.These approaches become in the Empowerment of disabled persons, which is the process of enabling people to increase control over their lives, to gain control over the factors and decisions that shape their lives, to increase their resources and qualities and to build capacities to gain access, partners, networks, a voice, in order to gain control.for proper implementation of the Support Model it is needed to:• Increase awareness about the usefulness and potential of its exploitation• Increase cooperation among every stakeholder involved in the Support Network, improving the effectiveness of the actions carried by professionals and families.• To give harmonized methodologies and tools, based on successful best practices • To develop practical cases, which enforce the credibility of the Support Model, the skills of professionals an families and Self-esteem of persons with disabilities.IDIPOWER project proposes the development of an INNOVATIVE collaborative and participatory methodology focused in overcoming the previously mentioned competence limiting factors through the next main bases;• Learning and joint training of families, professionals and people with disabilities.• Consideration of the person as the focus of the intervention, and who defines its interests, accompanied by the professionals who design the itinerary of services.• As a result of the implementation of the methodology, Personal Projects will be developed: based on the interests, needs, abilities and environment of the individual, in order to facilitate their personal promotion and community participation.The consortium includes:6 entities working in the field of Support Models for disabled persons, including a big collective of professionals working with disabled persons, persons with disabilities and their families and used to manage awareness and training addressed to professionals, persons with disabilities and their families.1 Technological Centre specialized in Collaborative Learning methodologies and in the development and application of ICT technologies to facilitate its implementation. This Technological Centre is also used to work with disabled persons according to Quality of Life Criteria. Through the execution of this Project the next results will be obtained;• Determination of key success factors and best practices for the implementation of Support Model for disabled persons including the promotion of their autonomy and the collaboration of the whole support community around them, especially families and professionals of disability.• Development of 1 Collaborative Training Methodology and 1 Set of Tools addressed to disabled persons, familiars and professionals for facilitating the implementation of the Support Model, based on the empowerment of disabled persons and the participation and collaboration of all the support stakeholders.• Development of 1 e-Collaborative Platform, including awareness and training contents, tools and social applications for boosting the implementation of the collaborative methodology• Implantation of the Collaborative Training Methodology through direct training actions divided into Workshops addressed to 400 disabled persons, familiars and professionals.• Creation of 6 Support Units in the participant entities related to disability devoted to the application of the Training Methodology after the completion of the project, with the objective of training about 1.600 disabled persons, familiars and professionals in the period 2017-2020• Awareness activities at regional and European level addressed to the global stakeholders related to the disability in order to create a multiplier effect

When we talk about People with Intellectual Disabilities, community’s still tend to have a more traditionalist and protective approach, but new Models, including Quality of Life, start the discussion in how we must direct to the abilities and full potential of the IDP’s and not to focus on their disabilities. With this in mind, the IDPLiving project has is background on the embodiment of The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that states they have the right to Living independently and being included in the community; with equal choices and opportunities to participate in their community. The OBJECTIVES of the IDPLiving are: -To raise awareness and motivate the whole collective about the abilities of IDP’s; -Boost the evolution of IDP’s to Accommodation/Supporting housing and Full Independence,enhancing their quality of life; -Transfer guidelines about how to develop basic daily routines in the main contexts of life; -Transfer guidelines about how to exploit ICT tools that can be used as assistive technology; -Provide the trainees with real life experiences to apply the trained competences during and after the training course. One of the main APPROACHES that was innovative and that made a big impact on the whole project was the process of co-creation and co-production, involving actively IDP's and responding to the main objective of the self-advocate movement “nothing for us, without us” and this meant actively to listen and ask the contributions of IDP's, to build a training program, that is driven by their priorities and needs.The PROFILE OF THE DIRECT PARTICIPANTS in the development of the project where: - People with Intellectual Disabilities (a total of 58); - Families of IDP's (a total of 31 relatives)- Professionals (a total of 48).The project achieve all the RESULTS establish, as follows:METHODOLOGICAL GUIDE (IO1) was developed, with the direct participation of IDP's, families and professionals, through the realization of 2 Co-Created Sessions, with the main objective of determining the key contents of the training program, methodologies and ICT Tools needed for improving the competences of IDP's and their supports for increasing their Independent Living in the Community. They identified and choose the following modules to be developed in the Training Materials: Quality of Life; Shared Living; House Management; Going Out; Healthy Lifestyle; Safe and Healthy sexuality. TRAINING MATERIALS (IO2) where created to improve the critical competences of IDP's, relatives and professionals for facilitating the improvement of IDP's competences to deal and face daily life activities and therefore to enhance their Independent Living opportunities.The materials are diverse and can be face to face sessions, online sessions, and outdoor activities, with the resource of templates, games, APPS, videos and others. DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTAL TRAINING ACTIVITIES (IO3), in a form of a Manual for Trainers for enhancing the practical and experiential training of IDP's, relatives and professionals, using the training materials within real environments.E-TRAINING PLATFORM (IO4) was created, that allows free access of the training materials and a field to create courses, with the different modules developed and that can be adapted to the different profiles of IDP's. This is an interactive space and tool to the participants and trainers and also can be a forum to share experiences between the different participants.The partners also assume the Creation of 5 IDPLIVING UNITS in order to ensure the sustainable exploitation of the project after the project lifetime. The partners assume this responsibility in the activities plan of organizations for 2020, to assure continuity of the project and to promote continuous innovation thought the implementation of new ideas for training materials and training experiences, keeping the E-Platform updated.The consortium developed a high range of DISSEMINATION ACTIONS addressed to the European collective related to IDP's and directly reach more than 5000 persons trough National and European events, Multiplier Events and then indirectly reach much more trough publications and social networks, because a flyer was created, as well a Facebook and you tube channel for the project, along a website.The RESULTS from TRAINING PROGRAM, confirmed that the quality indicators of the project where reach. Evaluation of global satisfaction was of 95% and Evaluation of acquisition of competences achieve a global value of 91%. The participants validate the real impact that the methodology developed of co-creation and co-production, through the DETAS and training materials, are very good tools to enhance and promote the participation of IDP's and highly promote their independent living in their contexts of life in their communities. Also we became aware that other targets in disability field are very interested in accessing the training program developed.

<< Objectives >>ALL SUSTAINABLE is launched with the AIM of empowering PID to be sustainable citizens and contribute as active agents to sustainable development.ALL SUSTAINABLE will develop a Serious Game-Based Training Methodology for increasing the awareness and competences of PID about sustainability and further transference to independent living projects based in an action-oriented learning approach, where they will be involved by playing an innovative Digital Serious Game<< Implementation >>The Implementation of the ALL-SUSTAINABLE project activities will be structured through the following Working PackagesWP1. Project ManagementWP2. Development of a Serious Game-Based Training MethodologyWP3. Production of a Digital Serious GameWP4. Development of a Training Package with Resources for Trainers and Training Material for Persons with Intellectual DisabilitiesWP5. Sharing, promotion and sustainability activities<< Results >>Main tangible results will be:Experiential Training Methodology for PID’s acquisition of sustainable competences and further transference to their independent living projectsA Digital Serious GameA Training Package for Trainers and PID (trainees)Impact;75 PID and 25 Trainers will participate in the Validation Pilot Actions150 Stakeholders will be involved in the National Multiplier Events3.000 PID, Trainers, Supports and Stakeholders will be targeted by the dissemination actions