In the Greek region of Attica, around 300 children and young people with disabilities live in institutions, deprived of real opportunities for personal growth and social integration.
This situation reflects a wider challenge: across Greece, it is estimated that between 2,500 and 4,500 people with disabilities are still institutionalised. Many of these young people, once they reach adulthood, do not have the skills to live independently and remain trapped in a system that deprives them of self-determination.
The Cool Crips association, led by people with disabilities and inspired by the philosophy of independent living and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, works every day to overturn this paradigm, offering support, training and advocacy for a more inclusive society.
What the project involves
ILSIM offers an empowerment programme for 20 young people with disabilities, aged between 9 and 27, who are residents of the Voula institute, with the aim of preparing them for independent living outside the institutional context.
The project offers:
- Training in practical skills such as digital literacy, money management, personal and employment rights, and self-advocacy
- Pathways for developing talent, personality and interpersonal skills
- Assisted connection to the labour market to promote stable employment
- A simulation of daily life in environments that reproduce real domestic contexts, to translate the skills acquired into concrete experiences
The approach is participatory: beneficiaries are involved in evaluating the programme through focus groups and interviews, making the project flexible and tailored to their real needs.
The beneficiaries
ILSIM directly targets 20 young people with disabilities institutionalised in the Voula institute, but its impact also extends to other residents, the professionals who assist them and, more generally, the hundreds of people with disabilities living in institutions in Greece.
Through the training and empowerment of individual participants, the project aims to pave the way for cultural change: moving from an institutionalised model of care to one that focuses on the autonomy, dignity and right to choice of each individual.
Project name: Independent living simulation (IL-SIM)
Proposing organisation: Cool Crips Non profit Organisation
Area of intervention: Inclusion & Social Development
Country: Greece