Integr-Action Through ETS

“Integr-Action Through ETS” (IATETS) is a 24 month strategic partnership aimed at creating new opportunities of education and personal fulfilment for disadvantaged European adults affected by disability through delivering on educational formats and methods of customized learning based on Education Through Sport (ETS).

IATETS is an approach of transnational cooperation involving organizations with outreach to the target of the project and with outreach to the final target of the project. The Consortium comprises NGOs and sport associations with specific experience and recognized quality in the field of ETS. Project target are disadvantaged adults aged 18-35 affected by physical disability.

The project sets itself to address the educational exclusion of adults with disability in partner countries and in Europe, with its corollary of skills mismatches, exclusion from participation and massive unemployment.

Disabled adults are disproportionally represented among the excluded from education and the labour market, as highlighted by Eurostat data. The findings indicate that adults with disability face lower educational attainment and higher unemployment than their peers not affected by disability, while at the same time participating to a lower degree in formal ad non formal leaning.

Access from education and training, either in both the formal and non-formal sectors, is also more challenging for disabled adults as compared with their peers. Adults with disabilities face higher rates of early leaving from education and lower participation in lifelong learning than the average population, which translates into a mismatch in the acquisition of basic skills, transversal skills and attitudes necessary forfurther education, employability and comcrete participation at all the levels of society.

The EU Disability Strategy stresses the connection between full economic and social inclusion of individuals with disability and the achievement of the targets sets forth by European policies in the field of education and training (ET 2020 Strategy).

In the increasingly complex realities of today’s society, the development of a varied set of basic and transversal skills is even more of a compelling necessity for satisfying the requirements posed by employers and the imperatives of a concrete exercise of citizenship, as advanced by the European Commission in the “New Skills Agenda for Europe” (2016).

The recognition of the positive educational impact of Sport activities enshrined in the EU “White Paper on Sport” (2007) as well as the concrete practice of its educational use for a variety of targets,including disadvantaged categories, shed light on both its relevance in the frame of lifelong learning and on the potential to be extracted out of Sport as the cornerstone of an inclusive and customized educational offer.

Education Through Sport is a purposeful combination between Sport practice and Non Formal Education (NFE) employing Sport as an avenue for the development of soft/basic skills, and attitudes enhancing social inclusion and the transversal dimension of employability. As embedded in a wider frame of positive values and participatory attitudes (tolerance, mutual understanding and teamwork, self-confidence, democratic spirit and solidarity) is also a potent vehicle of motivation to further learning and active participation in society. ETS represents therefore an effective and as of yet underexplored approach to the empwerment of the target group.

IATETS will deliver on:

– A Research, integrated in a set of Reports, outlining the educational needs and barriers to disabled adults’ participation in Sport and through Sport as compared with the existing educational offer. The Research will allow an assessment of existing needs and therefore framing of policy insights to enhance disabled adults’ participation in Sport to stakeholders and policy-makers at the different levels.
– An Educational Format applicable across sectors in adult education employing ETS as an instrument of empowerment of disabled Adults.
– A Manual Ten Key Remodels, produced as a result of a direct testing of the Format with disabled adults from all the partnership countries. The Manual will enhance the operational/methodological capacitites of operators by providing them with guidelines and methodologies on the use of ETS in educational programmes targeted at disabled adults.
– A Web Platform developed in accordance with high-end standards of accessibility, comprehensive of open-access educational modules in multiple languages for direct learning by the ultimate beneficiaries of the project in partner countries and Europe.