Youth Activation - Long Term Ambition Good practice example

The main purpose of the „Youth Activation - Long Term Ambition“ (YALTA) project was mainly to influence systematic work with youth with visual impairment in both involved countries – in Slovakia and Slovenia. Wehave developed and verified a model which enables activation of young people with visual impairment and provides practical examples on creating inclusive environment within the already existing youth groups. Despite various efforts in the area of inclusion people with visual impairment are still facing discrimination in various areas of life. This specific group has very few opportunities to participate on mainstream activities (social, cultural and leisure-time activities). Therefore they spend most of their free-time in a passive way without any motivation to influence social life. Similar situation concerning this group of youngsters is observed in both involved countries. There were three types of target groups identified within the project that are crucial for developing systematic activities for youth with visual impairment:1) youngsters with visual impairment (young leaders), 2) volunteers without disability (young volunteers) and 3) Professional staff of involved partner organizations. In order to achieve main project goals we realized several activities and outcomes. In the first phase we summarized know-how of all involved partners and created a toolkit for youth workers and for youth leaders. These toolkits formed a basis for the following project phases – for the training phase as well as for the testing and implementation phase within which the functionality of the proposed model for activization and inclusion of youngsters with visual impairmentwas verified. Moreover the project enabled the creation of organized groups of youth with visual impairment cooperating with youngsters without any disability in four pilot regions (Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, Nitra, Prešov) as well as realization of several regular activities for youth with visual impairment and for elementary and secondary school pupils. These activities were prepared by trained young leaders, volunteers and trained Professional staff. This project contributed to the direct activization of youth with visual impairment and to their organizedness and their involvement into leisure-time and various civic and social activities that has a big importance especially regarding self-advocacy and promoting rights.