M.O.TE – ‘My Opinion My Vote’ is a Grundtvig Multilateral Project financed by the Lifelong Learning Programme for European Education, Audiovisual & Culture Agency’.
The project aims to empower people with learning disabilities through active citizenship and participation in political elections.
The following organisations are participating in MOTE project from different countries:
Associazione Italiana Persone Down (AIPD) – the coordinating organisation is a national association of persons with Down syndrome and parents and guardians. It was officially established in Rome in 1979, and obtained official government recognition in 1983. The Association is a non-profit making organisation and exists as a central point of reference for parents, professionals and anyone interested in Down Syndrome. The national headquarters are located in Rome, and 40 branches are spread out in the national territory.
It has already promoted and coordinated a Socrates and it’s a member of EDSA.
Sio2 srl
Sio2 srl, Consultancy and hardware and software services. Main clients Not for profit organisations in the field of disability and social disadvantage.
Down Syndrome Ireland
Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI) is a national charity supporting people with Down syndrome and their families. The organisation’s mission is to support people with Down syndrome in making their futures as complete as possible by providing them with the necessary structures to fulfil their potential. DSI was founded in 1971 as a support group for parents and carers of people with Down syndrome. Since inception DSI has achieved much in areas of groundbreaking research, home teaching, inclusion in mainstream education and supports for independent living.
In 2009 the 10th World Down Syndrome Congress will be held in Dublin from the 19th – 22nd August 2009. The congress website is www.wdsc2009.com
Fundaciò Projecte Aura
The Project Aura was born in Barcelona in October 1989, by an initiative of the professionals from the area of integrational education. The Project aura is the first program of Supported Employment in Spain, pioneer in implementation and development of this methology. The aim of this program is to integrate people with special needs, mostly with Down Syndrome, to the ordinary labour market through the Supported Employment methology. This methology allows to prepare the future candidates, taking into account their possibilities and their special need for support. The Project Aura is a founding member of AESE (Spanish Association of Employment), ACTAS (Catalan Association of Supported Employment), a member of FEISD (Spanish of Down Syndrome) and APPS (Catalan Federation for protection of people with mental retardation).
Facultat de Psicologia, Ciències de l’Educació i de l’Esport Blanquerna. Universitat Ramon Llull.
The Blanquerna Faculty of Psychology, Education and Sport Sciences (Ramon Llull University, Barcelona) is an institution that provides training in the fields of education, psychology, sport sciences and speech therapy, whilst offering possibilities for practical experience in the professional world through projects and research. Our aim is to ensure the highest quality of teaching through tuition in small groups, including tutorials and seminars.
Az Értelmi Fogyatékosok Fejlődését Szolgáló Magyar DOWN Alapítvány
The Down Foundation (a foundation of public utility) was established in 1992 owing to a union of parents. Its aim is to improve the life quality of ESN people in the spirit of normalization and integration. Today the Down Foundation plays a determining role in the provision of educationally subnormal people in Hungary. The foundation has organized projects in the spirit that the problems of the mentally handicapped can only be examined together with the special problems of their family. This organisation runs gap filling institutes and programs (like 2 Temporary Residence Hall, Day-time Hall, Residence Halls, Down Ambulance, Special Dentistry, Early-age Developing Centre, Down-Nurse Service, etc.).
Equal Partners Foundation
Equal Partners is a parent-run, non-profit foundation providing support to over 200 partner families with children and adults with disabilities and/or learning difficulties. Following the social model of disability as a guiding philosophy, all the support programmes are individualised and are delivered in the natural environment where the individual requires support, i.e. in homes, schools, places of work and recreation and the community at large. It is in these places that one can find our partners receiving support. Equal Partners seeks to support people with disabilities and/or learning difficulties towards an independent and meaningful life within an inclusive society.
University of Malta, Faculty of education, department of Psychology for Inclusive Education
The programme for Inclusive Education is responsible for training and research in the area of disability issues and persons with learning difficulties at the University of Malta. It has been instrumental in the creation of courses and study units in the area of Inclusive education in general and in specific areas of disability and learning difficulties like children with autism. Down syndrome, dyslexia and children needing an alternative and augmentative means of communication. The Programme is also involved with NGO (Equal Partner Foundation and Dar tal-Providenza) as well as acting as consultants and conducting training and research in specific schools. The Programme is regularly involved in organizing seminars and workshops in these areas and it also liaises with foreign universities.
The Equal Opportunities Centre for Disabled People
The Equal Opportunities Centre for Disabled Persons is to monitor developments in the equalization of disabled people and non-disabled people. Moreover the Center’s task is to draw the authorities’ attention to areas and situations where there are not equal opportunities for disabled people and non-disabled people. The Centre is also to publish information on the subject of equal opportunities for disabled persons in the Danish society.
Minutes of the kick-off meeting held between Wednesday, 15th October 2008 and Saturday, 18th October 2008 in Malta.
This first meeting is a planning event; that is why it is called a kick off meeting. We have to establish the calendar of the project and see the feasibility of the work in progress. From individual people in the project we have to work towards becoming an effective transnational project team. We need to work together towards shared ownership of the project, looking at the common aims so that the results of the project are ours, reaching agreements and respecting rules. There needs to be collaboration and reflection on our practices and ultimately this all has to be a learning process as we learn to respect the cultural diversity that each country will bring along.
Team building exercises were followed by the presentations of the partners as a means of introduction of their association or foundation, as well as a brief description of the situation in their country with regards to the political participation of persons with intellectual disability and their right to vote.
Paola Vulterini, the project co-ordinator listed the tasks that the project had to do:
- Study what the situation is like and what has been done already
- Design and test an educational programme and put it on a web site
- Set up the pilot group of adults with intellectual disability.
- Launch the awareness raising campaign
- Launch the European observatory
The tasks have been divided amongst the partners and everyone is responsible for some task. All participants made a presentation about the task that for he or she is responsible for. Partners discussed about different parts of the project and made deadlines.
Thursday, 16th October 2008
We discussed about the calendar, the website, the survey and the poll.
Friday, 17th October 2008
There were presentations about the newsletter, the Ist European Meeting, the campaign and the educational programme
Saturday, 18th October 2008
This was a short meeting and the decisions taken over the last few days were revisited and confirmed.
In Denmark The Ministry of welfare have proposed a new election law. If this law is passed it will make it possible for people with learning disabilities to bring a personally apointed assistant into the election box, this has not previously been possible. However after the proposal it will also be required that an election official is present in the election box. The Danish Disability Council has critisised this along with several other organizations.
In Italy 2-4 next week in Rome it will be a meeting between people with Down syndrome coming from Spain, Colombia, Venezuela and Italy who will discuss also about political participation.
We would like to share with you some texts and photos of this meeting so I will send you everything by the 20th of November.
In Spain the Disabled People’s Interest Groups Federation (FEAPS) promotes and creates policies to raise awareness of the rights to the full citizenship for the people with disability, another entity The Federation of Associations of People with Physical and Organic Disability of the Madrid Community (FAMMA-Cocemfe Madrid) conducted a campaign during the last elections to the Spanish Parliament asking the politicians to guarantee the right to vote for the mentioned group under the same conditions as the rest of the citizens have.
All the campaigns in Spain facilitating or promoting the right to vote for people with intellectual disability have been raised by private entities or personal initiatives.
In Hungary on the 14th of November Intellectually disabled people organized a large-scale charity concert ‘Jobb velunk a vilag’(The world is better with us) for raising money to orphan children. This was the first time in Hungary when intellectually disabled people proved to the entire society that they can give to other people as full-members of the society in spite of their deficiencies through a high-standard concert. They would like to pay people’s attention to the importance of responsibility to each other. The concert was taken in the largest concert hall in Budapest, in the Sportarena where more than 8000 people listened to the group Nemadomfel and their well-known friends performance.
What has happened since our meeting in Malta?
AIPD have started the selection of the users and the volunteer that will participate in the project. They have decided that the four people group who will be involved in the meetings will come from Rome and the rest will come from 4 different cities all over Italy. They planned to meet the educators of the cities involved, on December to explain all the phases of the project. They met the four people group once at the end of November, once in December and twice in January before the meeting in Bruxelles.
University of Malta and Equal Partners Foundation are working together to set up the group of adults that will be taking part in the poll, and especially to form the group that will be participating in the European meetings. We have managed to meet today to set the ball rolling. Further meetings have to be conducted to get all the work necessary ready in time.
In Ireland, they have been in liaison with adults with Down syndrome & their families regarding the selection of participants for the project.
Down Foundation has started to organise the group that will takes part in the poll and it has also chosen the 4 people group that will participate in the meetings by asking for the leaders of the Residential Home’s advice. We are planning to prepare the travellers for the meeting as well as we can and we would like to teach them some english above all the knowledge about the project.
Project Aura has inserted a training module focused on Europe in the continuing training program of the Foundation. They have also preselected four candidates who will actively participate in the project, will do a training course and travel to different European countries to make an interchange with other foreign users. The preselected participants displayed a great satisfaction with the project and were very interested to take part in it. At the moment they are preparing a meeting to inform the families of those who will take part in the project. We are, also, trying to get in touch with the Spanish Euro-MPs to know if they could meet us during our visit in Brussels.
Center for Ligebehandling af Handicappede have made a design for the “poll” and guidelines for the interviewers. They have sent theese materials to the project partners for their comments. They tested the design in december and started the interviews in january.