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Rowing upstream
Start date: Jun 17, 2014, End date: Apr 16, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Twenty youngsters (mostly students, aged 18-27) from Sweden and Belgium gather for one week in Maasmechelen (Belgium). Two leaders accompany and coach them. This is a follow-up project of a first bilateral exchange in Sweden last year. Our group is a mixed-ability group: 50% of the participants have special needs due to (severe) physical disabilities. This means that the able-bodied participants will have to execute special needs assistance (mobility, hygiene etc), which will ask a lot of time and energy. In this exchange we will exchange opinions and methods, not only about disablility and assistance issues, but also about the chosen theme 'Rowing upstream'. It focuses on water issues (ecology, geography, health...) but also on the figurative sense of going against the flow. We plan a variety of activities linked to the theme: a quiz, a lecture, a statements game, an excursion by wheelchair bikes, an expression workshop, challenging group dynamics activities, intercultural games, an interactive city game... Also cultural evenings and relaxing activities like swimming, story telling in a fire hut, a singsong evening. Most of these activities are prepared and lead or organized by the participants themselves. An important objective of this exchange is to give youngsters with different abilities a chance to meet and to discover and develop (new) skills. They will create friendships and gain intercultural experience, regardless of their individual impairments and talents. We also want to obtain more respect from able-bodied towards disabled people. We hope to increase every participant's self esteem and sense of inititiative by passing through this quite challenging project. For both organisations (Funkibator Sweden and Hannibal JKVG Belgium) and our staff/volunteers this project is a tool to reflect about our work with special needs people and to broaden our horizon. We expect that it will generate new ideas, skills and methods.
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