MOONWALK

Intro

‘MOONWALK’ is a strategic cooperation of three civil society organization from Hungary, Italy and Portugal. Find out more about the partnership here. The project was implemented with the co-financing of the European Union, in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme. Find out of the programme here.

’MOONWALK’ would focus on how to involve local groups of young people living with disabilities more efficiently into skills development processes and how to empower them more efficiently. The partnership would work on gathering professional literature, knowledge from the experts working on the field and asking the target group directly to establish a strong basis for the methodology and steps of involving young people living with disabilities in local youth projects. The intellectual outputs would improve the efficiency of the partners and gather multidisciplinary knowledge for other organizations too. The main aim of our project was to develop a toolkit and framework based on non-formal learning methods structuring and improving the empowerment of young people living with disabilities, who are often heavily disadvantaged (also NEET). This methodology was designed based on empirical research conducted in the project and and improved the work of organisations the professionals involved in the project.
The partners tested the methods and tools presented in the handbook during the pilot phase of the project. While COVID-19 restrictions made reaching these objectives difficult, the partnership managed to adapt the project to the changed environment and implemented both the research and the methodology development phase.

Activities implemented

• Research report published with the results of the survey in Italy and Hungary, and the focus groups in Italy, Portugal and Hungary. Find out more about the research here.
• Handbook published with the pilot descriptions, toolkits and case studies, developed based on the research report
• Joint staff mobility implemented in Hungary, July, 2021
• Transnational meeting implemented in Italy, November,2021
• Eight meetings and conferences with the aim of dissemination

Research

Why is it necessary for youth work to be open to young people with disabilities? 44.1% of young people with multiple disabilities live a passive life. Youth programs are not equally accessible to young people with disabilities, and the more severe the condition, the more they are excluded.

MOONWALK implemented a survey-based research in Italy and Hungary, complemented with 9 focus groups conducted in Italy, Portugal and Hungary.

159 people completed the surveys in Hungary and Italy. The number of NEET young people in the study was 111 (46 Hungarian, 65 Italian), 59% of whom were disabled, according to their self-reports. A total of 65 people participated in the focus group studies. The study was conducted along structured questions for comparability.

Based on the study, we can conclude that although young people did not perceive that their parents were limiting their autonomy aspirations, there is a strong relationship between the autonomy index and external regulators in the Italian sample. They are strongly influenced by the desire to comply, tangible rewards and rules, the higher the influence of external regulators on actions, the lower the autonomy index.
These young people presumably maintain some of their friendships because they do not want to disappoint, suggesting a lack of assertive self-advocacy.
Conflict management habits, a higher rate of asking for help from others during conflicts, low motivation to take the lead, becoming a more frequent victim, are characteristic of both samples and point in the direction that strengthening assertiveness may be the goal of a developmental work.
Self-esteem is also likely to be negatively affected by the experience of inequality in social participation, which is a basic experience, regardless of the degree of educational integration in a given country. The ignorant and disrespectful attitude of non-disabled people in everyday life makes it difficult to participate in society, culminating in employment difficulties. Unemployment of young people with disabilities does not seem to be able to be compensated by higher education either, according to the participants of the focus groups, the consequence of the discriminatory and dismissive behavior of the society is the unemployment of people with disabilities.

Background

Advocacy groups play a major role in changing social systems; people living with disability were able through these movements to change their living conditions, to have the right to education, to have equal access to everything that gave the majority a decent quality of life, to earn an independent living by working. This process isn’t over, and we can hardly say that we’ve reached the age when people with disabilities no longer have to struggle; it’s enough to think about the barrier-free environment, which has different form across Europe. In Hungary, changing the situation of people with disabilities is a slow process owing to the isolation of families with disabled children, the lack of inclusive pedagogical culture, poor integration mechanisms, the lack of teachers' knowledge of SEN, the lack of a curriculum framework for competence development, the lack of a more flexible teaching environment, high level of knowledge-transfer paired with frontal methods. These are both a cause and a consequence that, within the established frameworks, fewer people with disabilities actually have the opportunity to become assertive, influential, and politically active.

In some processes, Italy and Portugal are moving ahead of Hungary. Italy is ahead of Hungary in terms of integration and the quality of education, although sign language is still not recognized as an official language and it’s not used in schools. Proper legislation is already in place to achieve real inclusion in Portugal, along with efforts to eliminate segregated special education schools. Speaking of teaching methods, Italy and Portugal are similar to Hungarian schools in their tendency of using frontal methods regardless of the state of integration. Developing competences - precisely because they concentrate on less tangible and measurable abilities- requires interaction and equal involvement of students in the thinking process, making frontal techniques less adequate. According to TALIS report 2019, competence development isn’t an organic part of those education systems because educators, teachers themselves do not believe that innovative teaching techniques are able to deliver high level of knowledge.

As a result, it can be generally said that students' social and advocacy-related competencies are underdeveloped in public education institutions; this is detrimental to everyone, especially disadvantaged groups, who have limited access to other development, community services. In this way, education systems contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities. Youth work is established considering different values and circumstances which are suitable for supporting disadvantaged young people living with disability. MOONWALK project aims to develop a toolkit and framework based on non-formal learning methods structuring and improving the empowerment of young people living with disabilities, who are often heavily disadvantaged (also NEET). This methodology would be designed based on empirical research conducted in the project and would contribute to and improve the work of organisations and professionals working on the youth field with this specific target group in a local youth work context. The project seeks to conduct empirical research (in the form of survey and focus groups) to understand what young people living with disability might need for the development of their advocacy-related competences.

Preliminary observations identified four key areas:

• autonomy
• networking
• tolerance and conflict management
• ability to assert social interests

Methodology

The result of the methodology development of the partnership is a handbook. The handbook includes toolkits, activity desciptions and case studies of successful empowerment processes of young people living with disabilities, using the tolokit of youth work.

The result of the methodology development of the partnership is a handbook. The handbook includes toolkits, activity desciptions and case studies of successful empowerment processes of young people living with disabilities, using the toolkit of youth work.

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Context – youth work and disability
• Best practices - Youth work and disability
• Independent Living Movement
• Empowerment, role of the youth worker
• Pilot descriptions
• Case studies
Downloads

Downloads

Research results
Research report on Hungary - language: Hungarian
Research report on Italy - language: English
Narrative analysis of the fouces groups conducted in Portugal - language: English
Comparative analysis of research results - language: Hungarian
Comparative analysis of research results - language: English

The result of the methodology development of the partnership is a handbook. The handbook includes toolkits, activity desciptions and case studies of successful empowerment processes of young people living with disabilities, using the toolkit of youth work.

Methodology Handbook - language: Hungarian
Methodology Handbook - language: English
Toolbox (ANNEX 1) - language: English
Pilot description Italy(ANNEX 2) - language: English
Pilot description Portugal (ANNEX 3)- language: English

Partnership

Együttható was founded by social professionals, and enthusiastic young volunteers in 2010 to promote non-formal learning, innovative community services and a new way of thinking in youth and social work. It operates a youth information office in the 4th district of Budapest and an afterschool located in Gyöngyös. Inclusion of young people living with disabilities is an important objective at Hatáspont Tanoda - more than 20% of enrolled students are living with disabilites, including Autism Spectrum Disorder. Apart from individual tutoring and applying special pedagogy, non-formal education is a key method in developing soft-skills of our students. Együttható Egyesület has a wide range of experience/expertise of involvement young people living with disabilities into local and international actions/learning experiences. Inclusion of young people living with disabilities is a main horizontal objective of our daily work, promoting the Independent Living Movement and empowering young people to be more self-sustainable and active citizens along the way. Our experience is that there is little emphasis on youth work with young people living with disabilities on a local level, which – in our opinion guarantees the most opportunities for valuable and permanent results.

Find out more about Együttható.

Associazione Uniamoci Onlus works every day in order to realize social inclusion of young people with disabilities, and in order to obtain this main aim we try to organize both local and international activities involving together young people and young people with disabilities. We support young people to became active citizens conscious of their potentialities through their involvement in non- formal learning processes. Our organization has a great experience in motivating and supporting mixed groups of young people in developing different kinds of youth initiative under Youth in Action, and Erasmus+ programs.

Find out more about Uniamoci Onlus.

The Associação de Paralisia Cerebral de Coimbra - APCC was established in 1975 as a private institution of social solidarity and a nonprofit organization for people with special needs to promote the social inclusion of people at a disadvantage, with a focus on people with disabilities and to support the inclusion of people with disabilities, particularly Cerebral Palsy. Our aim is to create and develop rehabilitation services, and to promote the integration and development of people with disabilities. Through the rehabilitation centre we support people with severe disabilities and complex needs. Our organization have a qualified and recognized work in the areas of Medical Rehabilitation and functional education, Education, Vocational training, multidisciplinary team for SocioProfessional Integration, Music, Hipotherapy, Hydrotherapy, Sports, Outdoor Adventure Education (Adventure Farm” Services) , Residential units and Occupational Centres.

Find out more about APPC.

Contact us

Questions? Feel free to contact us!
National coordinators of the project:

Elemér Szentpétery, Együttható Egyesület, Hungary, info@egyutthato.eu
Graça Gonçalves, APCC, Portugal, graca.goncalves@apc-coimbra.pt
Eleonora Di Liberto, Uniamoci Onlus, Italy, info@uniamocionlus.com

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