2024-07-13

Art Of Inclusion - Equality vs Equity

This EU funded Erasmus+ project took place from 22-30 of May 2024, at the venue Dom Sokolik in Trzcinsko, Poland an was organized by Windmill Tree foundation. WAYOH is proud to be partner for the second time in our joined promotion of inclusion through the Erasmus+ program and send chairman of WAYOH Marten Jansen as a participant.

Stereotypes, misconceptions and lack of information about dissabilities are the basis of social stigmatization, numerous prejudices and also the reason why young people with dissabilities are mostly involved only in ’special’ projects. However, numerous studies show that classes in mixed groups are much more effective and have a positive effect on both youth with and without dissabilities. This project aims to dispel many sterotypes and demonstrates, with practice and examples, how working in joint groups can be succesfull.

During the project, we took al closer look at the definitions of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, at ethics of communication with people with dissabilities and to understand what Disability Etiquete is, what Universal Design means and what Reasonable Accommodation is about.

Participants shared good practices, succesfull stories, project experiences and lead workshops. They also had the oppertunity to expand their network, present their organisation or foundation, present project ideas and create new partnerships.

After getting to know eachother on the first day through games and activities, we went into the mountains on the 2nd day of the project. Among us were people with visual dissabilities and a wheelchair user, wich we carried up and down the mountain using the Joelette. This is a French invention and there is only one of them in Poland, owned by Windmill Tree foundation. The Joelette makes it possible to include wheelchair users to join mountain trips through rough terrain. You can watch the reel on Instagtram here!

On the 3rd day the participants of this trainingcourse volunteerd at the event Children Without Borders, organized for a school with intergration departments and schools in Wroclaw for students with Child Cerebal Palsy, where they could participate in workshops and activities, organized by us and other co-organizers of the event. You can watch the reel on Instagram here!

On the 4th day we visited Jelenia Gora and got several workshops from the Polish paralympic athlete Lucyna Kornobis. This took place in the first ever wing of a Polish sport facility named after a paralymic athlete, wich is Lucyna.
She gave workshops about Shot Put, Sitting Volleybal and Goalball and got a presentation about het trainingprocess and paralympic experiences.

The last days we presented our ngo’s and participants organized workshops. WAYOH presented a workshop about Equality and Equity, where a presentation about korfball, as a mixed gender teamsport, was used as a tool to introduce Equality and/or equity in existing sports, to create a more inclusive sport for people with dissabilities and/or introduce gender balance, to make it a mixed gender sport. With this workshop, WAYOH represented the sportive perspective on the topic Equality vs Equity.

We ended the project with a ‘cultural exchange karaoke’, where we chose songs in our national language for participants from another country to sing, to learn a new language through non formal education.

As a result of this project, we secured a spot as a partner in the next Art of Inclusion project of Windmill Tree Foundation, we closed a partnership with the Polish ngo ‘See Beyond’ for a project about football for the visually impared and we are working towards a partnership with El Pasero Asociacion from Spain. 

Special thanks go out to the Windmill Tree team and their cooks, volunteers and international interns, who took very good care of the participants!