NEWS

BSDA is partner in Integr-Action Through ETS
28.11.2019
"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.

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 for further education, employability and concrete participation at all the levels of society.

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.

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 empowerment 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. 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, 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 capacities 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.