Abstract:

This paper will present an overview of the TV T21 COMmunity project (submitted to an Erasmus + Strategic Partnership in the field of Youth). The project aims at promoting and facilitating the social inclusion and the employability of European Down Syndrome youth citizens through Tourism and e-skills. The project also aims to foster, safeguard and promote European Cultural Heritage (via the promotion of Touristic activities), as well as requalification in terms of cultural, audio-visual and e-Skills diversity in cross-sectorial areas. It started with a cultural and artistic activity with Down Syndrome teens and escalated to the use of ICT educational materials and tools to requalify these young students.

The awareness for the Trisomy 21 citizen’s inclusion has been slowly increasing thanks to a number of measures and actions adopted at both National and European levels. The European Parliament adopted a declaration on children with Down Syndrome in 2012 urging the Commission, the Council and the Member States to contribute to their social inclusion though awareness-raising campaigns. Although the inclusion of these population in society is also being promoted by the EU through the European Disability Strategy much more can and has to be done. Work in this area is still, mainly, being done by non profit organisations and associations in the civil society with very few resources. Therefore, this project aims at making a positive difference in the area of Down Syndrome children's support.

This project links and merges different topics that have been the specific focus of several earlier projects. The main complementarity of this project is to a previous one on the issue of the Down Syndrome Citizens named “Pintar para lá dos Riscos”. This was a project based on the work of volunteers and a non-profit association (APPT21) with the collaboration of the Higher School of Education in Santarém and celebrities. The project involved 25 artists (artist painters, sculptors and a young writer) as well as other 25 young Down syndrome citizens. These young group of people with trisomy 21 were encouraged to express their feelings through art in order to raise awareness on the subject as well to empower the social integration of this population. This project led to various paintings presented through exhibitions, leading also to an adapted book (adapted to people that have difficulties in following the classic literature narrative). Based on the great results and to the awareness of this previous project, we upgraded these initiatives by including other countries (Croatia and Italy) with non-profit organizations working on the subject, and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to requalify these youngsters and to promote their employment. This upgrade led to a submission of an application to the Erasmus + Strategic Partnership programme.

Keywords:

Employability, e-skills, social inclusion, Trisomy 21, Web TV.