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Description
The project aim is to create the conditions for the participation of people with intellectual disabilities in decision-making in the public sfere. The project focuses both on working with people with disabilities (increasing their skills, their human rights awareness) and creating comprehensive accessible plans for their participation at relevant stakeholders (through working groups, committees of patient organizations, etc.), with a special focus on easy-to-read information and outputs. We want people with intellectual disabilities to be perceived as experts by their own life experience.
Summary of project results
Thanks to the length of the project, easy-to-read has become more widespread and there is a growing interest from institutions. They count with the involvement of people with intellectual disabilities, as valid evaluators and understand that they financially rewarded for this work. Overall, the topic of accessibility of information is very topical in society and has allowed us to show the society-wide benefits of easy reading. Events during the project, such as the Covid epidemic or the reception of Ukrainian civilians after the start of the war, have accelerated the need to address easy communication.
The project allowed us to create new unexpected collaborations that can be examples of long-term working practice for other institutions. Thanks to the project''s activities, we have created conditions for cooperation and offered ways to involve people with intellectual disabilities. However, we were still confronted with a low level of knowledge and little understanding of the participation needs of the target group. Little thought is given to these citizens because they are still rather "invisible" in society. Due to prejudices and preconceived ideas, they are still treated as recipients of care and support rather than as active citizens. Society is not yet ready for joint decision-making on public issues, and this is also true for other target groups.
Within the project we have moved from the absence of participation to forms of information and consultation, and in some cases even cooperation. Further mind-set changes are needed for forms of decision-making and citizen power. All the materials, outputs and know-how from the project give a great variety of tools for further development after the project.