Access For All

“The EU needs to get more people with disabilities into jobs and include provisions on disability in more of its other policies,” says Parliament in a resolution, passed last week, on the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020.
“Over 80 million people, i.e. around 16% of the EU’s total population, are living with disabilities. The Europe 2020 Strategy target of 75% of the population aged 20-64 in Europe 2020 in employment cannot be achieved unless it includes people with some form of disability”, said Àdám Kósa ahead of the plenary vote.
The employment rate for people with disabilities is only around 45 % in the EU and this is one of the groups hardest hit by the financial crisis, says the resolution, which was passed by a show of hands.
Austerity measures must not become a pretext for unjustified cuts in services for persons with disabilities or in projects for their social inclusion, MEPs say.
The European Parliament stresses the need to reach a swift agreement on the proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. This was approved with 362 votes in favour, 273 against and 23 abstentions.
It also calls on the European Commission to reinforce anti-discrimination and accessibility provisions in the EU’s cohesion policy plans for 2014-2020, public procurement reform proposals and to present a legislative proposal for a European Accessibility Act with strong and binding measures at EU level to improve access to goods and services for people with disabilities.
MEPs call on EU Member States and the European Commission to recognise sign language as an official language in the Member States. The rapporteur himself is deaf and is assisted by an interpreter using sign language during meetings.
Finally, the resolution calls on Member States and the Commission to swiftly ratify and implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). So far, the Convention has been ratified by 17 Member States.

You can now download the enhanced Code of Practice (CoP) for Mentoring in English, Bulgarian, Dutch and Turkish. This CoP (the result of the Validating Mentoring 2 project) is mainly addressed to managers and developers of mentoring programmes. It will help them to critically review their systems and how they work, while also helping them to improve their quality and/or gain external recognition. It will equally be very useful to those planning new mentoring programmes, through the advice about good practice that it provides and by the links it offers to other resources. But such first-time developers are not its main target audience. The CoP is also designed for use by the staff of organisations that provide mentoring programmes. Indeed, an important principle of our approach is that as many of the staff team as possible will participate in the self-assessment process. By contributing to the process staff will bring their own knowledge and expertise and learn from their colleagues while helping to improve their own practice and the performance of the programme overall. This CoP does not address all types of programmes that sometimes are called ‘mentoring’ (see Section 4 for guidance about the nature of ‘mentoring’). It has been developed initially to meet the needs of NGO’s, small training organisations, and others sharing their approach. The term mentoring is often used, for example, to cover aspects of professional training and coaching, where formal reporting requirements may constrain freedom of choice and confidentiality. Though the CoP may have limited applicability to mentoring programmes of this kind, it should still provide some useful guidance and valuable stimulus for self-reflection. The crucial first step, as for all mentoring programmes, is to carefully consider and define the particular goals of the programme and to understand the particular requirements that such goals impose.
Downloads are available at the newspage of the project website.

The European (Valorisation) Conference entitled “Creativity and Innovation in Education, Training, and Employment” will take place on 25 September, 2009 at POLIS, Rue du Trône 98, in Brussels (easily reachable via the metro – station “Troon / Trône”). It is organised with the financial support of the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the EC.

The (provisional) agenda is as following:
8.00-9.00 Registration/welcome coffee and project products exhibition
9.00-9.10 Opening – Maria Goranova-Valkova, MCA, Bulgaria
9.10-10.30 Workshop session 1
“Accessible e-Learning for People with Disabilities”:
• Quality and Accessible Training II Project (9:10am – 9:30am) – Dr. Val Chapman, UW, UK
• E-Access II Project (9:30am – 9:50am) – Andrean Lazarov, MCA, Bulgaria
• ETTAD Project (9:50am – 10:10am) – To be confirmed
• Educational Platform for Physically Disabled People Project (10:10am – 10:30am) – To be confirmed
• Discussion / Questions – Moderator: Maria Goranova-Valkova, MCA, Bulgaria
10.30-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-13.00 Workshop session 2
“New Opportunities for Rising of Job Readiness for People with Disabilities”
• GOAL.NET Project (11:00am – 11:20am) – Prof. David Brown, NTU, UK
• Validating Mentoring 2 Project (11:20am – 11:40am) – Maria Goranova-Valkova, MCA, Bulgaria
• Social Employers Network: Common European Portal (11:40am – 12:00am) – Petya Grudeva, MCA, Bulgaria
• ESTEEM Project (12:00pm – 12:20pm) – Dr. George Taylor, UW, UK
• KeyComKit Project (12:20pm – 12:40pm) – To be confirmed
• ENEVA Project European Portal Linking Projects in the Field of Disabilities (12:40pm – 13:00pm) – Andrean Lazarov, MCA, Bulgaria
• Discussion / Questions – Moderator: Maria Goranova-Valkova, MCA, Bulgaria
13.00-13.10 Closing of the event – Maria Goranova-Valkova, MCA, Bulgaria
13.10-14.30 Lunch. Continuation of the networking.

For registration, click on this registration link. As places are limited, please register before 4 September 2009.