Politische Bildung und Empowerment für taube Bürger*innen

The aim was to complement the existing educational landscape with accessible adult education programmes for deaf people. Special attention was given to the key areas of politics, everyday life, he...

The aim was to complement the existing educational landscape with accessible adult education programmes for deaf people. Special attention was given to the key areas of politics, everyday life, health and history. Thanks to the joint commitment of the participating partner organisations, the political and general education as well as the personal development of deaf people should be promoted and strengthened across national borders. The overall aim of the programme was to achieve sustainable self-efficacy for the target group and to impart European values and political, cultural and historical background knowledge. Current events should be viewed and categorised in a well-founded way and discussed in a meaningful way with people from the peer group and the hearing majority society. Our aim is to promote social participation by enabling members of the Deaf community to acquire knowledge and information on current and relevant issues. The aim is to counteract the lack of information, to work towards the common goal of an inclusive society and to promote the international exchange of information, knowledge and experience.

Regular project meetings were held at the respective locations of the individual project partner organisations. In Klagenfurth, Weimar, Lublijana and Prague, face-to-face meetings were organised to exchange information, to visit existing local structures, to get to know the local deaf community and culture and to work together on the project goals. In addition, videos on current political and social issues were recorded in sign language and distributed outside the joint meetings. Also two three-day symposia were held in Germany, where topics such as politics and society, association work and structures were discussed in sign language and presented by external speakers.

First and foremost is the close networking within the partner organisations. Existing links were intensified and expanded, and new ones were forged. This resulted in new potential that will be worked on in the long term. Old collaborations were reflected upon and examined for potential for improvement. As a result, existing ideas have been given new impetus and taken forward. One example is the sign language videos. In these videos, current political and social events are taken up, explained, fed with well-founded background information and references to the deaf community are established and explained. In addition, specialist sign language was collected, translated into national sign languages, recorded and distributed. During the face-to-face meetings, public events were also organised in local deaf associations. At these events, the project and the Erasmus+ funding opportunities were presented, the progress made so far was presented and suggestions were taken into account.