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INCLUSIVE NETWORKING CAMPUS TO FOSTER THE ACCESS TO UNIVERSITY OF YOUNG STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
Start date: Sep 1, 2015, End date: Aug 31, 2018 PROJECT  FINISHED 

European Union (EU) considers that education has a central role in fostering both societal and economic progress across the EU. It demonstrates that education is crucial for young people's transitions from basic education to the labour market and for their successful integration in society. Moreover, in relation with the EU roadmap, the Strategy Europe 2020 sets a target of not more than 10% early school leavers amongst the population aged 18-24. Additionally, the 8 priority areas for action in the EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020 include ‘Education and training’ whose aim is to promote inclusive education and lifelong learning for students and pupils with disabilities and to increase the number of students with disabilities who access and successfully finish their higher education. Accordingly, in the current context it is a priority for the EU that persons with disabilities, especially the young ones, get an inclusive and quality Education, since it contributes to improve their opportunities to achieve a stable and well-paid employment. For all these reasons, the objective of the INnetCAMPUS project is to encourage and help students with disabilities in second cycle of secondary school and high school to continue their education towards University, since this group is in high risk of early school leaving, which involves a greater likelihood of experiencing social exclusion in adulthood. This project aims, in the long term, to improve their future access to quality jobs. The project has the following specific objectives: - Promote transnational mobility of young persons with disabilities. - Promote access to college for students with disabilities, reducing early school dropout in this group. - Give universities the opportunity to reach future potential university students and identify opportunities for improvement in their campus, so that they are prepared to offer an inclusive university education under conditions of equal opportunities for all the students. - Improve and promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the university community. - Learn from other countries in terms of support to persons with disabilities. - Disseminate the good practices among other European stakeholders. Fundación ONCE, and the three participant Universities (University of Granada, University of Lisbon and Artesis Plantijn University College) will be responsible for preparing and holding 6 different inclusive campuses: - 3 pilot inclusive campuses in Lisbon, Granada and Antwerp (July 2016) - 3 consolidated campuses in the same cities (July 2017) For each campus, previously recruited young students with disabilities from pre-university education (aged 16-18) and a group of volunteers, will enjoy a 7-day stay in an university campus where they will learn at first-hand what a normal day is like for a university student, and will take part in academic, cultural and leisure activities. Each campus will be composed of 25 participants (5 local young students with disabilities, 10 foreign young students with disabilities, and 10 volunteers at risk of social exclusion with or without disabilities). Thus, the total number of participants in the entire project will be 150 (90 students and 60 volunteers). The 25 participants of each campus will stay together in a hall of residence for a complete week and they will benefit from the resources that the University has to offer, taking into account their specific needs. They will also be offered different activities to identify the talent and their future professional skills, as well as to improve their language and social skills. Staff from the University and accompanying persons will provide personal support, as well as a native language Sign Language interpreter, if needed. The expected results, with focus on access for disadvantaged, are: - To Encourage the continuity to higher education of students with disabilities, whose level of dropout during the high school is very high. - To encourage the participation of those students in students mobility programmes. - To sensitize the university community about the needs of students with disabilities. - To Identify improvement opportunities aimed at developing protocols for students with disabilities in the university environment. - To Improve Universal Accessibility as a tool for inclusion and awareness in European Universities. For more replicable results, a set of diffusion measures have been planned within the project, that include 2 workshops to be held in Madrid (2016 and 2017) and an Inter European meeting in Antwerp (2018) where the project outcomes will be communicated and disseminated to the most relevant stakeholders. Additionally, web promotion actions, conferences and workshops attended by the participating universities, as well as the use of the Erasmus Student Network ExchangeAbility project will help to reach all the target groups in order to foster the access to university of young students with disabilities.
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