Project Summary

“Social Care for Physical Improvement” is an 18-months Erasmus+ Key Action 2 Strategic partnership in the field of youth project, coordinated by Champions Factory UK and partnering with Balkanska Agenciya za Ustoychivo Razvitie (Bulgaria), Asocijacija adaptivnog plivanja Srbija (Serbia), MB “Efekto grupe” Lithuania). The project is a long-term social change achieved through training of youth workers from partner organizations and involvement of young people with disabilities and fewer opportunities, social inclusion, promoting quality youth work, implementation of innovative youth work practices Adapted physical activity and sports (APAS ) focused on health and wellbeing, a powerful tool for non-formal education. Through the activities of this project we plan to raise youth awareness of importance of sports for young people with disabilities. We will achieve it with the international help and expertise, and also through exchange of good practices. Due to this, the main objective of this project is to exchange good practices about APAS culture in social context, as well as raise awareness regarding APAS.

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The objective is to enhance knowledge in youth work on the topic of rehabilitation and improvement of quality of life of young people with disabilities – by providing materials, good practices, promoting active participation of young people with disabilities in society, even participation in paraolympic sports, and strengthening cooperation and networking between organizations.

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The profile of participants is practitioners – staff active in education and sports training, youth workers, experts, specialists, professionals, social workers, young people with disabilities.

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The activities:

• collection of good practices in the field of application of APAS

• development of e-brochure

• youth worker mobility training and local trainings

• national dissemination events

• info APAS days.
   

The methodology that will be used: project management and coordination – creating management team that will coordinate and manage the activities, monitor project progress, proper budget control and time management.
Two transnational project meetings for preparation of the project activities (in UK and Lithuania), also creation of dissemination plan that includes creation and monitoring of the project Facebook page, leaflet in national languages, press release. As part of the dissemination, info APAS days will be organized with the local community members, interested learners, relevant key stakeholders and beneficiaries. Mobility of youth workers will be in Bulgaria and Serbia and last for 3 days and 2 participants per partner will participate in it. In youth workers training will be involved 8 local participants. Final dissemination event will be in Lithuania, as the partner country.

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The planned project results are: Multilateral agreement, Sustainability plan, Quality assurance plan and Evaluation reports, on-line and face-to-face feed- back questionnaires, youth workers’ and young people with disabilities project Facebook page, videos, photos. All this will be used free also through the web site by young people interested in social integration of people with disabilities through Adapted physical activity and sports for better quality of life.

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The envisaged impact: we expect that youth workers will acquire more skills to enable them to cope with their everyday working challenges with people with disabilities, to be more motivated to participate in EU projects, to be more fluent users of European languages; equal learning opportunities in sports will be provided for young disadvantaged people, by adding more specific skills to become self-motivated for continuously improving and extending of the gained skills; healthy mind-set will be developed and it will be challenge for many people to do a new start in their life style. The potential long-term benefits – skilled youth workers, facing obstacles and cultural differences in their work with people with disabilities, will find attractive way both to learn about APAS and practice it. The positive impact at local and national level will be noticed in sectors as healthcare and social services. The added value which will be achieved is decreasing the level of everyday stress, raised awareness of APAS as a powerful tool for social integration in Europe. We expect multiplication of the project results, their application into daily practice and creation of strong APAS network for involvement of people with disabilities and youth workers together, helping their families, community and improving the quality of life in terms of physical and psychological aspects.

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Project manager: Shirin Amin, shirin.amin@championsfactory.bg