DIVE - Diversity and Inclusion are vehicles for empowerment

The social approach to disability, especially in western and European societies, has evolved noticeably, throughout the years. Passing from being a social stigma, nowadays several businesses are implementing diversity’s inclusion strategies and several non-governmental organisations are arising in order to support people affected by disabilities in
engaging in processes of empowerment to improve their quality of life and become as independent and autonomous as possible, but also their families.
The bottom-up action in this field has plaid a determinant role in the fight for the acquisition of rights as well as for the implementation of a number of measures in several fields (architecture, social policies, economic incentives…) that are
contributing to the acceptance of disability as a form of diversity rather than an source of impediment.
In the vast panorama of non-governmental organisations, the associations working for the empowerment of people with disabilities still face a lot of obstacles and, among them, the one that the most affects their social impact is a major lack of funds. This translates in difficulties in the implementation of a number of initiatives both for the users and for the
professional development of the workers in the field. The result is a weak professional development and engagement in lifelong learning processes that could make operators in this sector aware of the most advanced techniques but also that would allow them to exchange practices with other organisations.
Our project aims, through a 7 days mobility, at creating a space and a time for operators in the field of diversity, to meet peers from other countries and engage in a translational dialogue that will provide them with an intensive professional
training. The week is structures upon a number of varied activities that, through the active participation of the youth workers, will allow them to exchange best practices and develop tools aimed the their professional development.
The project involves organisations that support, using very diverse approaches and tools, people affected by disability in their journey towards social empowerment. The strength point of this partnership is the varies approach to inclusion and active participation processes that the partners have, that allows for a great margin of exchange of practices. The organisations involved aim at having an impact on different aspects of the lives of the people they work with and for: from the support in reaching autonomy in everyday tasks to the use of art and music as a mean to enhance soft skills and the ability to develop alternative forms of communication.
The partnership was created with the intent to bring together organisations that work towards supporting the empowerment of people with disabilities from completely different points of view. The main goal was for us to understand all the possible activities that can be done to support reaching empowerment and how many channels there are in order to do so. Furthermore we wanted to support our colleagues working in our same field but in different organisations.
Understanding their way of acting allows us to develop actions that can complement their work and strengthen it, bringing added value to people.