EDIT

Employment Opportunities for Disabled Persons:

Innovative Training and Technology

Notes of the 5th Project Meeting

Rome, 3-6 December 1999

Persons attending the meeting.

For CAVA/IRIS:

Christophe Delezie, Director

For UNIMATICA CONFAPI:

Valentina Serra, Transnational Collaborator

For Consorzio AURORA:

Prof. Urbano Stenta, President

For CSSC:

Prof. Giovanni Di Vona, President
Maria Terracina, Interpreter

For INDOGO:

Br. Maurice Buyens, Director
Ilse Wouters, Project Co-ordinator
Stefaan Martens, Project Associate

2. Formal Welcome.

The formal welcome words were spoken by Prof. Stenta.

Prof. Stenta emphazised that this 5th EDIT-meeting was the last meeting of this project. Nevertheless, he stressed the fact that this meeting would also would the first meeting regarding the future collaboration between the partners of this EDIT project.

He stated that this meeting should be divided into two major items, being:

The present state of the project
A first discussion about an eventually further cooperation

Christophe added the remark that this meeting also have to handle the dessiminiation results for those partners who are already in the dessimination phase.

Prof. Stenta mentioned that two journalists would attend the meeting in order to dessiminate the results of this 5th EDIT meeting as a message to a great part of the society. The journalists represented two different sectors of the Italian press, being:

A scientific revue, and
An economical journal.

Due to technical problems the two journalists were not able to attend the meeting. Anyhow, Prof. Stenta promised that he would send the summary of the meeting to the mentioned journalists, in order to allow them to publish this summary in their respective journals. Prof. Stenta also promised that he will send a copy of the published articles to all members of the EDIT project.

3. Notes of the 3th project meeting.

Reading of the notes of the previous meeting in Cagliari by all partners attending the meeting.

The notes are approved by all partners without remarks.

Progress reports.

4.1. INDOGO

Since September, our efforts have been focussed on:

The further elaboration of the training content
Methodology development
Dessimination of project results.

In september we started an experiment with seven deaf or hard of hearing persons, giving them training in computer applications working in the system of distance learning. The constant evolution in labour circumstances force nearly everybody to a way of re-education. Especially sure in the field of informatics this is a general rule.

But it is not evident for deaf and hard of hearing persons to follow courses in a regular education centre, and this because of two reasons:

They need handicap-related adaptations. And these adapted circumstances are very rare
The distance to an adapted training centre.

In combination with the fact that they have to follow these supplementary training out of office hours makes it very clear that supplementary education became nearly impossible for the deaf and hard of hearing people.

That’s why INDOGO started offering courses on informatics by the system of distance learning. By this way of working the student is working at any time, any place, any pace. He is working asynchronic with his tutor.

In practice, the structure of the collaboration was worked out as follows:

First of all we invited the candidates for a screening day. This offered us the possibility to know more about the students (computer assertivity and affinity) and their demands concerning additional education.
Secondly, the candidates were invited again to the centre for what we called a "practice" day. On this day, all practical regulations are worked out (e.g. what course is to take, what will be the way of communication, what is the deadline to be respected, certain level of assertiviy to computer use etc.). At midday we offered them also a meal as we wanted to stress a social network amongst them. They needed to get acquainted one to another, because a good evaluating social collaboration is very fruitfull for the students. This combated very much against the so many times feared "cold image" of distance learning.
Than the students received their courses with them to work at home. They can work the moment they like. If problems appear, they can contact immediately their coach at the training centre. The way they to do this is decided during the "practice" day. The coach will solve the problem as soon as possible. If no problems appear, the student can just work further on without taking contact with his training centre. At the end of each module the student will come to the training centre for a training session vis-a-vis with a teacher in informatics. This is a face-to-face interaction. If the knowledge of the module is considered being sufficient by the teacher, the student receives the next part of the course.

During the month of January we will organise a general (evaluation) working session at the centre where all the students will give their opinion about the system of distance learning as a whole. There they will give feedback concerning e.a. the content of the courses, the way of contact with the coach, the general feeling about the system of distance learning etc..

We are very proud to announce that until now the response of the candidates is unanimously very positive, and that until now nobody dropped out. This is a very important remark as all the candidates are following the courses on a voluntary basis. There are no obligations and there is no compensation in any way.

A question was asked by Christophe about the major purpose of this basic computer training. Stefaan answered by stating that this basic training justified a great need of most of the participating persons, as these skills that are achieved are of outmost importance as an answer to the nowadays demands on the labour market.

A second event took place at the 18th of November. INDOGO organised, in cooperation with the VDAB (Flemish Service of Labour Mediation), a workshop about the possibilities of open and distance learning in relation to the integration of disabled and low of skills people into the normal labour market. This organisation fit in the frame of the Belgian Network for Open and Distance Learning. Enclosed you find a copy of the invitation and the content of the workshop. 80 people attended the workshop.

The general conclusions of the workshop were:

The non-profit sector needs enough assertivity in order to show the good results they obtained by the enormous efforts already done to offer supplementary education and skills to disabled and low of skills people.
The profit sector has to change their approach to the higher mentioned target group. Already a lot of these persons possess enough skills to be very useful to all kinds of companies and services, as the labour market in Belgium suffers from the lack of well skilled candidates.

The most important conclusion of the workshops was the fact that the representatives of the profit sector acknowledged the two above mentioned statements. By the fact that we are working in a network, we sincerely hope that these conclusions will be flow through to the way of thinking of the executives in the profit sector, in such a way that they will change their "culture" about the relationship with disabled and low of skill people.

Out of his own experience Christophe testified that it is very important to adapt the training of the disabled person to the commercial demands of the actual economy. He subscribed the importance of a good collaboration between the profit and the non-profit sector. Therefore a guide with a sufficient commercial background could be an important additional help in the training of the disabled person.

A third event took place on the 25th of November. INDOGO attended a meeting of the Belgian Network on Open and Distance Learning focussed on the pedagogical appraoch of open and distance learning. Also the interaction between pedagogy and the candidates was a major point of attention.

4.2. CAVA-IRIS

Christophe put forward that his European project came to an end. The speech group was a great succes, with a lot of dynamic encounter, and a rising number of active members. As a result of the great need of contact between the members of the speech group, it was decided to go on with the speech group unless the fact that the French part of the project was ended.

For the future, the following proposition will be made in the point of view of the prolongation of the group activities:

For the handicapped (younger) people, the speech group was no more considered as a necessity. The social contacts seemed to be more important. That’s why emphasis will be put on the possibility to have social contacts out of the professional atmosphere. This way of thinking will lead in January-February to the foundation of "CAVA-Culturel" (sans Jacky).
For the parents of the handicapped people, the speech group will go further on. The most important purpose of this group will be the possibility to discuss all kinds of social items, e.g. anxiety, sexuality, sense of guilt etc…In this discussion the parents will be considered as partners and not as opposants. As the French part of the project ended, the parents will pay themselves the necessary fees to maintain this meetings with Jacky on a regulary basis.

4.3. CSSC

For the Sicilian partner Maria Terracina has given the progress report as Mr. Di Vona could only join the meeting on Sunday 5th. In CSSC, the second training course finished recently. The third course will start at the very begin of Januray 2000, ending in April 2000.

The main purpose of the course was to bring the students to a certain level of independency. To achieve this goal, the course has been split up into three phases, being:

The cognitive part: knowledge (English, informatics)
The affective emotive part: knowing how to be (orthophonist, self controle, knowing wat they have to do and developing this knowledge)
The applicative part: knowing how to do (practical exercices: the Microsoft package)

4.4. Unimatica Confapi en Consorzio Aurora

In the absence of Mr. Sotgiu, Prof. Stenta gave the reading of the Unimatica Confapi and the Consorzio Aurora progress report. First of all he showed the CD which has been sent to about 6,000 organisations in Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily.

Handicapped students were trained to visit those firms who responded positively on the received CD. The students came out of 18 provinces from Puglia (5), Sicily (9) and Sardinia (4). Of all places, 4 students being younger than 32 years old and unemployed, were selected to meet the executive members of all kinds of organisations. As the sensibilisation of the profit sector is the major purpose, the CD-ROM contained two major parts, being:

A summary of Italian laws and prescriptions mentioning the rights of handicapped people to have a regular job
Positive testimonies, either from handicappped employees as well as from their employers, underlining the capacities of disabled people as well as the possibilities to work with them

By using this CD, the handicapped students have a concrete tool to find a job on the regular labour market.

The visited firms received also a questionnaire to evaluate the impact of the CD on their decisions in the frame of the recrutement policy. The major research lines of the questionnaire were:

Did or didn’t the CD have an impact on your decision in the recrutement policy?
Did or didn’t the CD have an influence on your moral responsability to employ handicapped people, in order to integrate them in the normal economic circuit?

If the result of this project is positive, comparable actions will be executed on regional scale, out of the European context.

The questionnaire used will be translated into the English language and will be sent to all the other partners.

5. Summary and conclusions of the Rome meeting.

The first part of the meeting was dedicated to the progress reports of all the EDIT partners. These reports contained for most of the partners not only the research progres made since past September (Cagliari meeting), but included also some dessimination acts, except for the Belgian partner for whom the project will be prolonged into the year 2000. The first six months will be dedicated to do further research and education, while the second half of the year will be used to dessiminate all the results of the EDIT project.

This introduced the second part of the meeting. As all the current partner showed their strong willingness to prolong their mutual cooperation, a solution had to be find as the EDIT project do not end at the same time for all the partners.

To solve this problem, the frame of an agreement for further collaboration was proposed to all the current partners. This agreement testifies the willingness of all EDIT partners to continue their mutual cooperation. It ensures also to the INDOGO partner that there will be further mutual cooperation with each other partner during the dessimination period of INDOGO unless the fact that for some of the other partners the EDIT project ended at the end of 1999. Christophe gave a reading of a draft text that had to be adapted to the remarks given by all partners involved. He will now rewrite this draft text and send it to all the partners before the end of this year. The partners must react at the rewrote agreement before the end of January 2000, in order that this agreement is signed by all the interested partners before the next meeting of april 2000 in Gent, Belgium. Br. Maurice Buyens added the remark that two representatives of every organisation need to sign the agreement in order to ensure the continuity of the agreement.

Ideas about new projects will be exchanged between partners from now on untill the 31th March 2000. This offers the possibility for the partners to prepare themselves for the next meeting which is scheduled in Gent, Belgium from 1 till 2 April 2000. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss and finalise project proposals for the future.