Our Contributions to the ‘Living an Accessible Life’ Project

The equal participation of people with disabilities in social life is only possible by removing physical and social barriers. With this understanding, ‘Living an Accessible Life’ project, of which we are one of the partners, was successfully held in Ankara between 29.10.2024-05.11.2024. The project created an important platform addressing the issue of accessibility with youth workers and young participants from different countries.

In this blog post, we would like to share what the project has brought us and why this kind of work is a necessity for social change.

People with disabilities still face serious obstacles in many areas. However, most of these barriers are caused by social attitudes rather than physical. Empathising, learning the right communication techniques and breaking down prejudices are the first steps to removing barriers.

The ‘Living an Accessible Life’ project aimed to spread this awareness not only among youth workers but also in all segments of society.

The focal points of the project were:

Participants learnt about the problems faced by people with disabilities in daily life and were encouraged to develop social solutions.

Youth workers were empowered as leaders to spread this awareness in their organisations and communities.

Participants from different countries shared examples of good practices in accessibility and gained new ideas that they can implement in their own communities.

Taking part in this project as a partner organisation provided us with very valuable gains:

In this project, we had the opportunity to work with organisations from Turkey, Hungary, Ukraine, Georgia, Macedonia and Spain. Learning about approaches in different countries gave us a new perspective on our accessibility work as an organisation.

Our youth workers involved in the project gained new skills to integrate the learnt methods and awareness raising tools into their communities. Methods such as dramatisation, empathy exercises and practical trainings strengthened our communication with young people.

Accessibility is an achievement not only for individuals but also for the whole society. With the knowledge we gained in this project, we have become able to plan and implement our social awareness activities more effectively.

The project enabled the participating young people to learn not only about disability issues but also about different cultures. This intercultural dialogue environment increased the sensitivity of our youth to global issues.

The "Living an Accessible Life" project has an impact that goes far beyond the immediate participants. As an organization, we are committed to leveraging the knowledge and insights gained from this experience to benefit our local communities and foster broader social change.