1.ADD@ME
Ambassadors of Diversity and non-Discrimination @ new Methods in non-formal Education
By Vassilios Argyropoulos (I CEVI Europe National Representative of Greece)
Introduction
The present project “ADD@ME: Ambassadors of Diversity and non-Discrimination @ new Methods in non-formal Education (No: 2020-2-IT03-KA205-019070) is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The project consortium consists of six organizations which bring a different perspective to the project according to their profile. In specific, the Unione Italiana Ciechi ed Ipovedenti Firenze (coordinator, Italy), Fundación Docete Omnes (Spain), Views International (Belgium), Polish Association for the Blind (Poland), Ofensiva Tinerilor Asociatia (Romania), and University of Thessaly (Greece) are the members of the project consortium.
The project evolves its activities and has come up with extremely important outcomes which enhance the presence of youngsters with vision disability in their localities and/or in their regions. For example, youngsters with vision disability are trained to develop public speaking, self-advocacy, communication and interpersonal skills, presentation skills, teamwork, leadership and creating networking.
The activities from the previous ICEVI newsletter are described as follows:
Project Meetings
The third project meeting took place in Spain/Granada on the 15th of July 2022. The meeting was hosted by the Fundacion Docete Omnes Spain. Representatives from all partner organizations joined the meeting, reflected on what has been done (e.g. overviews of the Local Training Sessions in partner countries, overviews of the LTTA activities which took place in Belgium as well as finalizations of Intellectual output 2 ADD@ME Mobile Toolkit for Visually Impaired Youngsters and Intellectual output 3 ADD@ME online Trivial game for VI ambassadors). The project consortium took decisions for the next steps with respect to the project workplan.
Figure 1: Members of the ADD@ME consortium during the third transnational project meeting in Spain, Granada (Fundacion Docete Omnes Spain)
Highlights of the Intellectual Output Activities
IO2-ADD@ME Mobile Toolkit for Visually Impaired Youngsters
The Mobile Toolkit for the Visually Impaired Youngers is ready in all languages. The ADD@ME Mobile Toolkit is a Web App containing a large number of non-formal learning methods/activities, designed with respect to accessibility and usability features in order to be used by people with visual impairments. The main objective of this output is to implement awareness raising workshops on visual impairment in favour of their local community (e.g. sighted friends, mates, colleagues, etc). The Web App is available from the project website (ADD@ME Toolkit (ambassadorsofdiversity.eu) as well as from partners’ organizations websites and is translated into English, Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, Polish and Romanian.
IO3-ADD@ME Online Trivial Game for Visually Impaired Ambassadors
The online Trivial Game for Visually Impaired is ready!! The IO3-ADD@ME Online Trivial Game is an educational tool created to support visually impaired youngsters / facilitators, in animating and facilitating in an engaging and funny way the awareness raising workshops on visual impairment! It includes a Multilingual User Guide and it consists of quizzes relevant to the history of visually impaired famous persons as well as artists & musicians with a visual disability, assistive technologies, the braille code, disability-related knowledge and sports for visually impaired people (https://toolkit.ambassadorsofdiversity.eu/).
ADD@ME Local Training Events
All local training events took place in each partner’s country. The local training events started in December 2021 and were carried out before the second LTTA which took place in Liege. According to the Blended Training Programme, participants were trained on how to manage a group, leadership skills, interpersonal communication, basic knowledge on visual impairment to be able to inform sighted people and how to plan and implement awareness raising workshops for their local community. More than 80 youngsters with visual impairment participated in the local training events, discussed, and reflected on the ADD@ME Blended Training Programme for Visually Impaired Youngsters. The participants were excited about this training and in many cases, they asked for more training sessions.
ADD@ME LTTA in Belgium (C2)
The second LTTA took place in Liege (16.5.2022 – 22.5.2022). It was a big achievement organized by VIEWS International AISBL. More than 30 youngsters with visual impairments travelled to Liege with their accompanying partners to participate in an intensive and fruitful training programme. The training programme put great emphasis on ADD@ME Awareness Raising Workshops, ADD@ME Mobile Toolkit and on the ADD@ME Online Trivial Game. All youngsters were happy and commented that they had lots of opportunities to ask questions, to experience the outputs of the project and talk about real life examples and of course that they had a lot of fun.
Figure 2: Snapshots during the ADD@ME learning teaching training activities in Liège, organized by VIEWS International
For more information you may visit
ADD@ME website: www.ambassadorsofdiversity.eu
ADD@ME Facebook: Ambassadors of Diversity
Contact Project Coordinator: Unione Italiana Ciechi ed Ipovedenti Sezione Provinciale di Firenze, Florence - Italy
Contact Person: Lisa Bucciolini Email: firenze@irifor.eu
2.Towards a Multisensory and Inclusive Museum for Individuals with Sensory Disabilities
By Vassilios Argyropoulos (ICEVI Europe National Representative of Greece)
The ToMiMEus project is financed by the European Social Fund (Erasmus + Programme/Cooperation for Innovation and the exchange of good practices Project Agreement Number: 2019-1-RO01-KA202-063245) and has integrated its activities by organizing multiplier events and other dissemination activities. In the present ICEVI Newsletter, two multipliers events are presented. The first one took place in Volos and organised by the University of Thessaly and the second one was organised by the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens
The University of Thessaly (Greece) organized its ToMiMEUs multiplier event on the 14th of May 2022. It included a panel of activities and presentations relevant to a. culture and inclusive museum, b. outcomes of the ToMiMEUs project, c. museum educational activities relevant to accessibility, aspects of inclusion and sensory disabilities, and d. artistic/cultural events (executed by the Laboratory of Access to formal and non-formal learning for individuals with sensory disabilities of the Department of Special Education and the Musical Ensembles of the University of Thessaly).
More than 100 people participated in the event and many museums had the chance to present their work regarding the above aspects (i. e. the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, the Athanasakio Archaeological Museum of Volos, the Museum of Cycladic Art, and the Tactual Museum of Athens). Some photos are provided conveying the “flavor” of that event.
Figure 3. Roll up of the event and a 4-page informative leaflet for the ToMiMEus project (University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece)
On the 28th of June another multiplier event was organised under the “umbrella” of the ToMiMEUs project. Interesting questions were addresses and discussed during the event such as “How has museum accessibility for visitors with hearing and visual impairments improved over the last 20 years?”, “Which are the key takeaways from the programs which have been implemented by museums in Greece?”, “How can a multisensory approach contribute towards the creation of an open and inclusive museum?”, “To what extent is it possible for museum professionals to plan for all?” These were some of the questions that were discussed during the scientific forum organized at the Canellopoulos Museum / Mουσείο Κανελλοπούλου and the Museum of Cycladic Art on Tuesday, the 28th of June 2022.
The talks of the forum took place at the Paul & Alexandra Canellopoulos Museum (CAMU, Theorias 12, Plaka) from 9 am to 3:30 pm. After that, a presentation and a demonstration were conducted at the Museum of Cycladic Art (Neophytou Douka 4, Kolonaki) from 4:30 pm to 6 pm regarding museum applications for visitors with visual and hearing impairments.
Figure 4. Demonstration of the mobile case (Museum of Cycladic Art, Neophytou Douka 4, Kolonaki).