Inspectors for Accessibility

Inspectors for Accessibility is a training course involving a group with 28 participants with mixed abilities from 8 countries: Romania, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia and Lithuania, Activity that will take place in Craiova, Romania, in February 2015. The training course aims at equipping youth workers with a set of skills, methods and activities on working with mixed abilities groups. Accessibility is the fundamental component of equality in societies. It is about giving equal access to everyone. Without being able to access the facilities and services found in the community, persons with disabilities will never be and feel fully included. Still in many societies, there are innumerable obstacles and barriers that hinder persons with disabilities such as stairs, lack of information in accessible formats such as Braille and sign language, and community services provided in a form which persons with disabilities are not able to understand. Even if the international legal framework - The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the European documents would guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities, even if offered with opportunities, the approach is not inclusive. Having inclusive international youth activities means that youngsters with different abilities would come together and are being offered with the same opportunities to participate. But working with mixed abilities groups is always a challenge for youth workers who have neither the expertise nor the chance to get their skills and competencies improved when it comes to mixed abilities groups in international events. When organizing an international youth event for mixed abilities group, is a wide range of measures that the associations and youth workers should be taking – from working on inclusive attitudes, to boosting up the intercultural communication, from respecting the rights to tailoring up the programme so that it would fit to all the learning needs as well as ensuring a physical space that would be accessible for everyone. Inspectors for Accessibility offers the opportunity to explore all these aspects as well as to pilot an innovative set of methodologies when working with a mixed abilities group. At the end of the training, the youth workers will have improved skills and competencies as well as the opportunity to adapt and replicate the methodologies both in their communities as well as in other international youth events