“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
Saint Augustine
We did not want to miss any pages, so following this philosophy we left to Perpignan (France). Thanks to the last mobility of TEDDIP’Europe project, six young people with some intellectual problems and four educators from local centres Canto di Los and Volta la Carta had the possibility to live this mobility experience. This group often meets and works together towards the social inclusion of their patients.
This experience was really important for the participants as it supported them in reaching their autonomy.
They felt it was a moment of personal growth, they had a chance to explore and to get involved in social life. Most of them have never travelled to another country alone and it was the longest time they were living far from their families. It was a hard challenge but they faced it bravely.
During the week from the 3rd to 7th July 2017, we were hosted by IME “Al Casal”, the French partner of TEDDIP project. They proposed us an agenda full of interesting activities: horse riding, judo activities, visits to the museum, full day on the beach, picnic on the shore of the lake. All activities were great for discovering different methods used for inclusion, strengthening relationships among the participants, and having fun!
French and Italian legislations on inclusion of youth with intellectual disabilities are very different.
Italy is one of the most advanced countries on de-institutionalization. The first step was made with the law 118 in 1971, it set up an obligatory education for every disabled student inside a mainstream public school, except the most difficult cases. Very different is the situation in France where institutionalization of disabled patients is on a high level. The school we visited, that is managed by our partners in Perpignan, is exclusive for disable people. Analogous situation in Italy does not exist, and for this reason the participants were very curious, wanted to know more about the system in France, to go deeper into the topic. Young participants asked French educators interesting questions and wanted to visit all the parts of the centre to learn about differences and similarities.
The educators from the local centres of Palermo have appreciated a lot this curiosity of their patients, because the state of de-institutionalization of support structures is one of the main topics being debated during the two years of TEDDIP project.
During the next months of the project, we will organise a local event in Palermo to present “White Book” and Good Practices Guide about the state of de-institutionalization. Those are the products developed during the project and it will present the conclusion of the TEDDIP path and findings.
The project TEDDIP’Europe is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, Key Action 2 – Strategic Partnerships in the field of Youth – with the aim to help to ingrate minors with an intellectual disability (in French under the syndromes called TED and DIP) into the community-based support structures.
The project partnership brings together partner organizations from 4 countries:
- IME “Al Casal”, Association Joseph Sauvy (France, coordinator);
- ALFMED Académie de langues France Meditérranée(France);
- Centre d’educació especial Les aigües (Spain);
- Eppas (Czech Republic);
- CESIE (ItalY).
For further information about the TEDDIP Europe project, please contact Ruta Grigaliunaite.
