<< Objectives >>The project aims at nurturing and supporting v.i. youths' sense of initiative and entrepreneurship by creating a safe and peer-learning oriented environment, which can facilitate the testing and validation of social entrepreneurial ideas.The project also aims at achieving the inclusion of young v.i. people by developing guidelines for organizing peer learning hiking, involving v.i. and sighted youth together, going on a target oriented trip and learning from each other on the way.<< Implementation >>Planning and preparing our social entrepreneurial and self-development and awareness workshops - an activity for the involved youth with v.i. (social entrepr. workshops) and the youth workers.Implementing the mixed peer-learning hike for sighted and visually impaired participants - testing the workshops and finalizing the guide for organizing peer learning mixed hikes.Testing the mixed peer-learning hike on a national level and sharing the results with wider communities and tourism sector.<< Results >>Development of workshops, hence social-entrepreneurial concepts.An updated and enriched version of a visual awareness training course.Development of guidelines and agenda for organizing mixed peer-learning hikes.Developed logistics of the hiking tour and a detailed agenda, together with safety rules, risk assessment and procedures in case of emergency.Implemented test hike in Bulgaria and agendas for all partners.Events for sharing the project results with newly developed networks.

In a two years project four organisations from Belgium, Germany, Italy and Turkey exchange on god practices of creative ways of making historical, architectural and cultural urban heritage more inclusive, interactive and so accessible for young people with handicap mainly visually impaired persons (following called VIP). The context/background of the planned project is that young people with sight loss want to move around in cities independently and have an autonomous own access to the structure of buildings and cities in their historical, cultural and architectural meaning. Guided tours through cities are widely not accessible for visually impaired persons neither live tours nor online tours via app or internet. Furthermore, such tours are often not arranged for the target group of young people in being interactive and multisensory. The missing points are: -Support in mobility and navigation -Access to places that are highly interesting for many senses like hearing, touching, smelling and tasting -Descriptions of visible elements in cities like buildings, squares and streets - Additional tactile material like models and maps The objectives of the project are: -People with sight loss name their needs in getting access to urban cultural heritage. -City guides get experiences in guiding visually impaired people through cities. -New ways of multi-sensory and interactive inclusive city tours are experienced by creative mangers of adoption the cultura heritage of cities.-In four European countries eight city tours with blind and partially sighted persons are made up by creative methods, experienced and evaluated. -Guidelines for city guides are drafted to guide in a creative and inclusive way making the tours accessible for visual impaired persons. -Four city tours with GPS data and audio-recordings of descriptions are published The activities of the project are: -Partners exchange experiences in city tours with visual impaired persons.-Visually impaired people name their needs in access to urban heritage in a Europe wide spread questionary. The results will be evaluated and published. -The project partners meet in the project countries for learning activities to create and experience guided tour – two in each country – and evaluate them. In a creative process they conceptulice multi-senory inclusive tours with the aspects: access to cultural heritage by seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting; understanding the past in acting; audio-descriptions; additionally support in mobility for blind and partially sighted people.-In each partner country one tour will be recorded in its GPS data and in audio format of the descriptions that are given. -The so created tours will be published online. So it will be tested, if such a form of access to city tours is accessible for people - specially with visua impairment.-A guideline will be drafted about the creative process how to make inclusive and accessible multisensory city tours not only for visually impaired but for all people. The activities and participants are: -6-12/2021: research on needs of young people with sight loss on their needs concerning city tours - Europe-wide 200 participants -02/2022: meeting in Berlin: evaluation of the researches done, creating and experiencing two multisensory and inclusive guided city tours - 5 participants of each partner country, 10 additional participants from Germany-5/2022: meeting in Istanbul: first overview of guidelines for accessible and inclusive guided tours (in museums, nature parks etc., creating and experiencing two multisensory and inclusive guided city tours - 5 participants of each partner country, 10 additional participants from Turkey-10/2022: meeting in Liège: first draft of guidelines for accessible and inclusive guided city tours, creating and experiencing two multisensory and inclusive guided city tours - 5 participants of each partner country, 10 additional participants from Belgium- 3/2023: meeting in Florence: finalising draft of guidelines for multisensory and inclusive guided city tours, creating and experiencing two multisensory and inclusive guided city tours, conference on accessible tourism for exchange of practices collected in the project - 8 participants of each partner country, 10 additional participants from Italy

"The ""Visually Impaired youth with Vested Autonomy – Social inclusion via social entrepreneurship"" /V.I.V.A./ was a project targeting young people with visual impairments” and in particular to facilitate their social inclusion and empowerment through the development of their leadership, entrepreneurial, and intercultural skills. The consortium is led by Ofensiva Tinerilor which has been working for and with v.i. children and young people since 2014. Part of the consortium is 1 social enterprise organization The International Council for Cultural Centers (I3C), BG, a National rehabilitation center for the blind (BG), two unions of the blind – in Iceland and Florence, a youth organization with excellent experience in working with v.i. youths – Ofensiva (RO), as well as one universities EL with experience in entrepreneurship and inter-cultural skills. The bouquet of partner organizations processes specific knowledge and expertise in the field of social inclusion, peer learning, theatre training, youth empowerment, entrepreneurship, leadership, and inter-cultural communication skills, applying different methods to combat unemployment and social exclusion of the visually impaired (v.i.) young people. The key objective of the project was to encourage v.i. young people’s active participation in society by designing, testing, and implementing a tailor-made training program for developing their social entrepreneurship, leadership, and inter-cultural communication skills. Thus, project partners created a sophisticated product to address the two main target groups’ needs (v.i. young people to become social entrepreneurs and youth workers to be provided with an innovative tool for supporting them). The project had specific interrelated objectives to be achieved: - to create an innovative social entrepreneurship training program for v.i. youths (Intellectual output) for development of their leadership, social entrepreneurship, and inter-cultural skills; - conduct one joint staff training event (C1) in order to train youth workers (a minimum of 2 representatives of each involved institution visiting Bulgaria for a shared training activity) in using the training program – to test a pilot version of the training program with a local group of v.i. young people in Bulgaria; - conduct one blended training event for groups of v.i. young people (C2) from the partner countries (a minimum of 5 v.i. participants from each country visiting Romania for 5 effective days and continuing the training with additional virtual mobility – six synchronous online sessions). This particular objective was adapted to the restrictions imposed by the COVID 19 pandemic and the C2 training took place as blended mobility. The participants in C2 becoming the V.I.V.A. pilot group of v.i. young entrepreneurs who have been trained and have tested their skills in a multicultural environment; - organize substantial multiplier events in BG, TK, IS, EL, RO, BE, and IT used for dissemination, multiplication and validation of the training programme, they all took place at the end of the project. The central tangible output of the project is the training programme on social entrepreneurship for v.i. youth including practical activities related to three main pillars: - Leadership skills – important for any young person, willing to undertake an entrepreneurial path. Leadership skills are important if a person is about to manage and empower others in connection with shared social and professional endeavors. Among other things they cover communicating, motivating, delegating, being positive, being trustworthy, being creative, providing adequate feedback, being responsible, being committed, being flexible); - Social entrepreneurship – a general set of rules, related to the development and sustaining of a social enterprise, including the practical adoption and use of the “bread in the dark” entrepreneurial experience, together with the v.i. adapted “bakers without borders game”, which provides a highly innovative and attractive view on social entrepreneurship for v.i. youths; - Inter-cultural skills – being successful in the global village requires awareness of and acquiring intercultural skills. The developed methodology is empowering young v.i. people to be autonomous and independent members of society; develop leadership, inter-cultural and social entrepreneurial skills; to support the development of young people-centred youth work and to foster active participation in society of young people. The project long term results are to raise the awareness of society towards the challenges of young visually impaired people. A network of V.I.V.A. supporters developed at the local, national and international levels to further apply and disseminate the V.I.V.A. methodology and offer youth with VI the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial models to be implemented by themselves in their communities."

<< Objectives >>GREEN4VIP, in line with the UN SDGs, 2022 EU COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION on Learning for Environmental Sustainability and the 2019 Recommendation on High-Quality ECEC Systems, aims at improving pre-school teachers’ skills on environmental awareness, the interdisciplinary STEAM approach and digital pedagogies focussing on visually impaired pupils (VIP) in ECEC to implement online and offline environmental workshops in kindergartens, to contribute to the implementation of the EU Green Deal.<< Implementation >>GREEN4VIP will investigate the skills gaps of 180 teachers through an online survey and then elaborate the GREEN4VIP Guidelines (WP2), Teacher Training Curriculum (WP3) and Inclusive Toolbox for VIP (WP4): a collection of resources for teachers to implement STEAM-based environmental workshops for 300 kids (40 are VIP) in kindergartens. Through a Transnational Training event and National Pilots for 60 teachers, resources will be tested and then shared with stakeholders through Multiplier events.<< Results >>+Guidelines for pre-school teachers, a practical guide to implement learning processes in ECEC to deal with VIP+Teacher Training Curriculum supplies skills to teachers to convey sustainable practices focusing on VI kids+Inclusive Toolbox for VIP (with audio-described video tutorials), to implement environmental workshops in kindergartens online and offline.OTHER OUTCOMES:-Teachers’ improved skills -Children’s awareness on environmental issues-Stakeholders use resources in their daily work.

BACKGROUND. The 3rd EU Youth Goal (2018) states that 1/3 of young people in Europe are at risk of social exclusion. People with disabilities are included in this category and are often victim of indirect discrimination. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others, furthermore it says that persons with disabilities continue to face barriers in their participation as equal members of the society.The Eu resolution on the EU youth strategy 2019-2027 add that “disadvantaged youth are usually less active citizens” and that EU can’t waste these talents and can’t afford disengagement among its youth.In accordance with this background, ADD@ME aims at empowering young people with a Visual impairment (youngsters with Vi) to become KEY PLAYERS IN PROCESSES concerning THEIR OWN SOCIAL INCLUSION at EU level.The following PROJECT OBJECTIVES represent a concrete way to tackle the above mentioned challenges: - Foster the social inclusion and the active participation of Vi youngsters through the development of new, innovative youth work practices (the ADD@ME model) to be used by youth with Vi themselves - Empower and enhance self-confidence, spirit of initiative and self-estime of young people with Vi through the development of a tailormade Blended Training Programme and a set of digital adapted tools - Combat prejudices and misinformation through the design of new and innovative non-formal learning methods to be used by Vi youngsters in awareness-raising events for their local community - Encourage young people with Vi to undertake actions of active citizenship and commitment in the society, through the implementation of Awareness Raising events (the ADD@ME Awareness Raising workshops) in order to make their community aware of diversity and disability issues - Strengthen transnational cooperation among civil society organizations dealing with visual impairment.To reach these aims the consortium will involve 90 young people with Vi at EU level. On the basis of an interactive process of development and mutual feedback the partnership will elaborate the ADD@ME products: a Blended Training Programme and a collection of digital tools to empower youngsters with Vi and to make them more active in the society through the implementation of Awareness Raising Workshops in favour of their local community.The development phase will be followed by a comprehensive testing through a Joint Staff Training Event, Local Trainings and a Blended Mobility for Youth.According to this METHODOLOGICAL ACTION PLAN the main EXPECTED RESULTS are:IO1-ADD@ME Blended Training Programme for Visually Impaired Youngsters: a training handbook with innovative and adapted non-formal learning methods and e-modules with the aim to empower and boost Vi youngsters’ self-confidence to become active citizens and participate actively in the society (60 p. + 7 e-modules in audio format; EN,ES,FR,GR,IT,PL,RO).IO2-ADD@ME Mobile Toolkit for Visually Impaired youngsters: a digital tool which contains non-formal learning methods Vi youngsters can use to implement ADD@ME Awareness Raising Workshops. The WebApp will have accessibility and usability features, in EN,ES,FR,GR,IT,PL,RO.IO3-ADD@ME Online Trivial Game for Vi Ambassadors: an educational online game aimed at increasing local communities knowledge on disability, that can be used as further tool by youngsters with Vi to lead ADD@ME Awareness Raising Workshops. The game will be a WebApp with accessibility and usability features, in EN,ES,FR,GR,IT,PL,RO.These IOs will be connected with Multiplier Events in each partner country and with a Final Conference in Florence/IT to reach a wide range of target groups and stakeholders.ADD@ME will develop further outputs necessary to achieve its objectives: Dissemination and Communication Strategy, Quality Management Handbook and reports.ADD@ME will have an EXTENDED IMPACT on:1) Direct participants:- Visually impaired youngsters who will benefit from a readymade model which can empower and increase their self-confidence in order to participate actively in the society- Youth workers who will acquire new methods to empower and support social inclusion of Vi youngsters.2) Partner organizations will benefit from the ADD@ME products as they will integrate them in their daily work, replicating them to reach even more youngsters.3) Other organizations for Vi from all over EU will use the developed tools to empower VI youngsters and to make them actively participate in the society. Thus ensuring a sustainable network of EU organizations in the field.4) Eu communities will also benefit indirectly from project activities and from the sustainable results as they will be more aware of disability.