Story Making and Reading for ALL

The main idea of this project was to provide a guide, material and training for family members and educators of students with Visual Impairment (VI), in order to design their own stories (fairytales, stories, educational material) and convert them in tactile images (via 3D printing) so as to be “readable” by students with VI. The lack of appropriate educational material, for children with Visual Impairments (VI), hinders any attempt to inclusive educational environments with no discriminations, ensuring equal rights for all children. For children with VI, reading requires an additional layer of three-dimensional tactile information so that the child can feel the shapes of the objects. Tactile pictures make the content of a book relatable and legible. The possibility to create low cost and high quality material for the children with VI, will facilitate their participation in the activities at school and will foster social inclusion and create a positive experience and motivation for learning and school. Teachers/trainers and families of VI children should have the knowledge and skills to provide such accesible educational material to them.

The ultimate goal of Stories4ALL was to increase the participation of children with VI, in key activities for their development, their social integration and the protection of the basic right to entertainment and education. in particular, the individual objectives of the project were: - Creation of a Guidebook for the design of a new or the transformation of an existing story/educational material in visual-audio-tactile (3D Printed) form. - Training for families and teachers of students with VI about using the Guidebook and developing digital skills (Story design, image design/ editing & 3D printing). - Develop capacity of families & teachers to create their own stories & transform unlimited material to a fully accessible format - Networking between organizations of consortium and stakeholders

The consortium designed and implemented six (6) project activities: A1. Kick off meeting in Torino A2. Design-Upgrade of the Guidebook for Designing a Tactile Fairy tale/story A3. Design of e-learning platform A4. Train the trainers A5. Train the families or teachers of children with Visual Impairment A6. Final Exhibition ofcDigital Tactile Stories In addition to these activities the consortium designed and maintain the website of the project (https://stories4all.eu/) and the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/stories4allproject)

- Creation of a Guidebook for the design of a new or the transformation of an existing story/educational material in visual-audio-tactile (3D Printed) form, in three languages (English, Greek and Italian) - Training for families and teachers of students with VI about using the Guidebook and developing digital skills (Story design, image design/ editing & 3D printing). In specific one training in Athens for the trainers of the consortium and two seminars (one in Athens and another in Turin). for trainers of other organizations and families of VI. In total we train about 75 persons from Italy and Greece - Design and maintenance of the e-learning platform (https://elearn.stories4all.eu/) with two online courses in three languages (English, Greek and Italian): "Story Making" and "Converting digital images into tactile images". In total 73 persons have been registered to the platform from Greece and Italy. - Two exhibitions with tactile fairytales and other educationa objects in Athens and Turin. The STLs have been uploaded in the webpage of the project. - Three infographics about Visual impairement, Braille language and training of trainers, designed in order to raise awareness.