The main objective of the project is to observe, collect, analyse, implement and spread innovative curricular and educational practices (teaching and learning) by mainly concentrating on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). The project aims to enhance special education teachers’ and students’ with deafness and hearing impairments’ (DHI) knowledge and motivation for language and social studies subjects in kindergarten, primary and secondary levels. The project also aims to educate and equip special education teachers and students with DHI with necessary ICT competences that they can meet the challenges of fast-paced globalization, improve their ICT skills, mobilize their education through cooperative work and conform to demanding high-tech environment of the future. The project proposes a series of activities for schools focusing on curriculum development, teaching and learning materials, academic studies and analyses, and methods (observation, experimentation, colleague partner learning, interviewing, conferencing, surveys and publications) by promoting collaboration between schools and a university. The methodology is based on a case-study approach where the learners will learn by exploring the underlying principals of the studying subjects. “Mobilities” are going to be used to enable partner organizations staff to visit educational settings within the partnership in order to extend their knowledge of the range of strategies available to support special education teachers and students with DHI through the use of ICT as a context for learning. The project desires and proposes long term outcomes as impacting the teachers to encourage ICT-based teaching and learning and build international partnership. Impacts for parents: to value the works of the students with DHI and teachers more highly, increase involvement in the schooling of their children, develop and improve their relations with the school and promotion of European identity. Finally for institutions, the impact is to develop international cooperation and examine of how different societies understand and value the education of student with deafness and hearing impairment.

The career aspirations of young Deaf people do not differ from hearing youngsters. However, the obstacles that they need to overcome so that to achieve their professional goals are much bigger. Nowadays, we can observe many activities directed to young Deaf people, aimed at helping them to overcome language barriers. Unfortunately, most of these activities are focused on rehabilitation of Deaf young people (helping them to improve hearing abilities), teaching them the language of the country in which they live, or teaching hearing people sign language. All of these activities are very helpful. But the Deaf young people, that we (and as it turned out – our partners as well) discussed with, have mentioned one thing that lead us to preparation of this project. They pointed out that communication barrier results in lack of information about how this “real” world of hearing working people looks like and how the real co-existing of hearing and Deaf people goes on daily basis. Most of us is afraid when we have to go to new school or job. Thoughts as “will I fit there?” “will I understand what I have to do?, “will they accept me?”, “will I manage to fulfil my duties?” – are much more concerning in the case of Deaf person. The second thing that we were told is that Deaf young people want to enter “hearing” labour market, so they want to get to know its rules. They want to receive information about how to enter and function on this labour market – information adjusted to their needs but still based on information which their hearing colleagues receive while starting professional life. Our project and prepared results are directed to young Deaf people, and to career advisors who work or would wish to work with Deaf young people. We would also like our project to have influence on the people from the environment of young Deaf people and show them that it is worth to support Deaf person in his/her professional aspirations. The main objective of our project was to change attitudes of young Deaf people, help them to believe that they can have influence on their professional development and are able to overcome obstacles in order to function in every professional environment they choose to be part of. We also plan to: •Increase job-opportunities for young Deaf job-candidates in the regular job market. •Encourage young Deaf people to do their best to start independent work-life in regular job market. •Give young Deaf people tools helping them enter the labour market. •Help young Deaf people to overcome obstacles in effective professional development and entering the labour market We planed to do it by: 1.development of a set of tools helping and guiding young Deaf people in the process of entering the labour market (translated into their languages); 2.giving young Deaf people information about how to define what skills and competences they already have, and about how and where they can improve them; 3.giving young Deaf people information about which skills and competences are mostly required at the labour market; 4.showing them how the reality of working with hearing people looks like; 5.encouraging career counsellors to reach Deaf young people and help them to enter labour market effectively (by give them tools and instructions about how to work with Deaf)

"According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union (EU) at the start of 2019, 101.1 million people in the EU had reached the age of 65 – 20% of the total population. By 2050, this share is projected to increase to 29%. The ageing is mainly due to a long-term fall in fertility rates and increased life expectancy. The needs of these people have changed over the years. There are significant differences between the seniors at present and in previous years. Together with the global phenomenon of ageing of societies (decreasing birth rate and prolonging life expectancy), increased migration of population, growing number of breakdowns of unions, lack of offspring, etc., a growing number of environments in which seniors run single-person households are observed, especially for Deaf senior. The ""Deaf Senior Education for Active Living"" project aims to : - PROMOTE ERASMUS + AMONG ALL CITIZENS AND GENERATIONS BY OFFERING ACTIVITIES OF EDUCATION AND EXCHANGES OF EXPERIENCES TO SENIORS.The project was designed to meet the growing demand for support for deaf elderly people, with particular reference to their access to the information and actions required by the digital world, first of all, the financial, banking and social security operations that today require increasing digital skills. Deaf people, especially older ones, are often forgotten by public services and cannot access most routes for people of their age because of the communication difficulties they may encounter and the absence of interpreting services, for example in CPIAs or UNITRE (in Italy), but also on mainstream occasions, such as conferences in a library or a guided tour of a museum. There are significant differences between the elderly of today and those of the past, the current ones are in fact active, attentive to their physical appearance and the environment, follow the needs of fashion, engage in various activities promoting health, physical and mental. They require a high-quality training offer, taking into account both the range of issues suitable for their needs and the possibility of being involved in various activities with a function of socialisation and active employment of leisure.Thanks to this active lifestyle, the current senior enhances his time and consciously selects the activities in which he participates, paying attention to the quality, attractiveness, and usefulness of the offer in everyday life. Increasingly, older citizens are showing an interest in broadening their knowledge of the latest technological developments (ICT) to be active in the digital world; they want to pursue passions/interests that, for various reasons (lack of time, over-responsibility), could not afford at an earlier stage of their lives. However, this process of selection and free choice is in fact prevented for deaf elderly people, who struggle to find the right information on training courses and even when they find them, they are faced with activities that are not accessible to them and lack adequate support. Since current elders are a group with specific individual needs, with different professional, family, social, educational, health and cognitive experiences (such as memory, attention, etc.), and that this significantly affects the educational opportunities of each person, the methods and forms of education used should be universal enough to meet the needs of a diverse group and at the same time individually adapted to the specific needs and abilities of the individual. For this reason, the consortium of this project wants to implement its training offer, enhancing the sector related to the education of senior people. - EXTENDING AND DEVELOPING THE COMPETENCIES OF EDUCATORS AND OTHER PERSONNEL WHO SUPPORT ADULT LEARNERS.Few adult educators/ trainers have been trained in the specific needs of older students and those with a formation in working with elderly people with disabilities. At the same, training materials are frequently designed to appeal to a younger audience and are not only not relevant but may be rejected as such by discerning seniors. Moreover, intergenerational training requires different methods and adaptation of existing materials and techniques especially when the target group are senior with disabilities (D/deaf Senior).- SOCIAL INCLUSION: According to Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we must recognize the equal right of all people with disabilities to live in the community, with the same freedom of choice as other people, and take measures effective and appropriate in order to facilitate the full enjoyment by people with disabilities of this right and full inclusion and participation within the community, so the project wants to improve social inclusion for older generations of deaf people through their stay active through learning, volunteering and contributing to the well-being of society."

We are living in a highly digitalized, interconnected society, where the immediacy of human interaction make us feel very close to each other. However reflective activity is seldom practiced.We understand that communication, in the wider meaning of the word, is an inherently essential need for humanity. This is what drives us to embark on a reflective exercise on some frequently ignored forms of communication: unconventional languages.First of all, and based on a preliminary needs analysis, we determined what issues are relevant to our project and what are the priorities to be address: social inclusion, learning for life, civic engagement, deprived communities, etc. Given these considerations, our concern about communities in danger of social exclusion, this will be a social project.Our objectives set the pattern of actions and approaches to complete our project: research, student’s direct involvement, and dissemination of results and activities undertaken.We expect to achieve both tangible and intangible results:•Tangible: consolidated report, documents, blog entries, multimedia files, etc.•Intangible: enhancing our awareness and or further knowledge of different cultures,Greater feeling of belonging to an European common culture, opening new horizons, etcIn order to meet these objectives and achieve the desired outcomes, great care will be need in ensuring the of tasks required for the completion of the project are fairly shared among the partner organisations. These activities will be adaptative to the changing circumstances and determined at different intervals as the project unfolds.These will include specific activities for each institution, virtual meeting, transnational coordination meetings, and mobility activities with students. These will be carried out in each of the partner organisations, and designed by the host institution:•Turin: Sign language, braille and malossi•Prague: Computing and digital language•Navalcarnero: Visual language•Pireo: Emotions and art language•London: Sound and musicA risk assessment was performed to determine and minimise possible drawbacks.This included criteria for the selection of the partner organisations, share of responsibilities, budget and the decision to select a Eramus+ KA204 – Strategic Partnership/exchange of good practice in Adult Learning project.We will work towards the creation of a collaborative atmosphere among our team, developing team building activities.Our assessment will focus on 4 aspects: specific activities at each organisation, transnational meeting, mobility activities and final global assessment.Thorough work on the design and assessment of each activity will help us achieve the desired impact, which we expect to be in 5 layers: participants, organizations, students, locally and regionally, national and global.We will identify items that provide a quantitave assessment (web interactions, blogs or social media, number of participating students, materials created, feedback questionaires, etc) and qualitative (media exposure, impact, external links, etc).In order to ensure sustainability, all our activities will be widely shared via the Erasmus+ Difusion Plan.We expect a smooth development of our project, carrying out successfully our planned activities, achieving our set objectives and disseminating our outcomes with the wider European community.Finally, provided we can complete the project according to plan, many of the materials and activities shared will remain for further use and/or further development, thus meeting the sustainability requirement, integral in all major European projects.

Research indicates that the employment rate of deaf or hard of hearing people is significantly lower than hearing people. Reasons include workplace communication issues, evidence of disability discrimination in the recruitment process and lack of access to traditional careers advice services. As a result, many Deaf people are turning to self-employment - a distinct area of growth, but still under-represented in terms of accessible training and resources. SignMedia Enterprise (SME) aimed to address these issues through the development of an accessible web based glossary for sign language users with an interest in the business sector and a package of supporting resources and materials. The main target users were deaf people in business and self-employment and those with an interest in setting up their own business, along with other beneficiaries are sign language interpreters, business students, hearing business professionals, teachers of the deaf, sign language students and policy makers. These groups were therefore the priority when identifying, selecting and engaging with project participants for various project activities.The project aimed to not only support deaf people who are already freelance/ in business but also provide opportunities for Deaf people to start their own businesses. The ability for sign language users to learn technical vocabulary will enable enhanced mobility, creative collaboration and employment across Europe for deaf people will be a key impact.The consortium consisted of 5 partners. University of Wolverhampton (UK) as lead partner, Bellyfeel Media Limited (UK) , University of Klagenfurt (Austria), Istituto dei Sordi di Torino (Italy) and Alba Società Cooperativa Sociale (Italy).The methodology and results of the project were based around 3 key Intellectual Outputs ( O2 Content development, adaptation and testing, O3 Technical Development; O4 Support and Training), 4 project meetings, management activities and dissemination activity. A 500 item business glossary in the 3 sign languages has been created signmediaenterprise.com and is free to use. The terms include a written definition, illustration and signed video and can be accessed in a number of different ways to assist with accessibility. The glossary is structured around the format of a business plan. There is also a 100 term International Sign glossary https://signmediaenterprise.com/a-z/?lang=isl . To support the glossary, 6 video case studies were created which focus on deaf led businesses. These aim to inspire and support the target audiences and provide real lief examples. https://signmediaenterprise.com/case-studies/ It was envisaged that a total of 99 individuals from target groups, stakeholder and internal partner staff would be involved and this was achieved through a range of activities, including internal testing, questionnaires, live launch, events and remote testing. The technical development team created the app structure, design and functionality to create the design, final structure and uploading of the content to the app. The final phase of the project blended dissemination with marketing and training along with an ongoing social media conversation with the target audience. A series of templates and tools were created along with users guides for trainees and trainers. It was envisaged that 1000 people would be reached directly and indirectly through project activities and this was far exceeded. Multiplier Events could not be carried out as planned due to COVID restrictions. Instead a cross-partner live launch event took place in June 2020. The event was targeted predominantly at the target groups and was delivered in international sign language to ensure wide engagement. It took place via Facebook Live which has resulted in a recording of the event being available on an ongoing basis from the project website. The event provided information about the project, the needs analysis findings, outcomes from testing, the app content and most importantly showed delegates how to access and use the app themselves. It also showcased the support and training available. The live launch on Facebook has had 1200 views on the launch date and since. This demonstrates significant impact, which is greater than would have been achieved at face to face events.In order to ensure that SME produced an app that is relevant and appropriate to the target groups, it was vital that individuals and organisations, outside of the consortium, were engaged with. The glossary has been positively received by the target groups and as a result impact has been very positive. This is demonstrated through the results of testing and piloting and anecdotal evidence in relation to the need for the project activities and outputs. It is also demonstrated through the high levels of engagement with social media.