How much do we know about disabilities?

 

Young people living with disabilities are often deprived of community activities and less willing to be involved, which affects their social status and environment in the long run. Educational institutions are trying to integrate these youngsters with limited success, limitations being an inflexible pedagogic framework, lack of qualified experts and barrier-free environment. Accessibility to mobility schemes and youth NGOs, in general, is limited. Why? What key stakeholders – grassroots, youth services, NGOs, NAs, policymakers, networks and resource centers – should do to improve accessibility?

Együttható Egyesület, our Hungarian partner, has published the results of the survey conducted in the framework of the “Hidden Dimensions” project – an international collaboration of three civil society organisations from Eastern Europe engaged in education, social work and/or advocacy.

The project aims to find the answer by conducting empirical research and formulating policy recommendations, as a first step the research report of the survey made available. The survey was performed in the autumn of 2021. The respondents were volunteers and employees of organisations and institutions applying to the Erasmus+ youth programme between 2017 and 2020.

Complete accessibility of youth service offices is ensured only in the case of 8.4% of the respondents in Hungary, the respondents mainly focused their accessibility efforts on the needs of persons with reduced mobility.

Part of the questionnaire was meant to measure the attitude and prejudices of respondents concerning people with different types of disabilities. In our research, 57.4% of the respondents have not obtained any knowledge of disabilities during their studies, and the same proportion has no experience whatsoever working with disabled people. The majority of the respondents (69%) have an informal relationship with a disabled person, and few of them (22.5%) have a person living with a disability in their family.

Want to know more? – Check the weppage of Együttható Egyesület!