Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

incluD-ed: Where can people find more information on the event?

Eric Magnier: Quickly after the first meeting on the Regional States of Inclusion in September, we set up a website at www.inclusionnpdc.fr to announce meetings, to highlight interesting articles and to find information about the participating organisations etc. A newsletter and an online forum are planned from 2013/2014 on.

After the 1st edition of the Regional States of Inclusion all reports have been uploaded. We saw that there is a lot of energy created around the Regional States of Inclusion 2013, which is really positive. 2013 – 2014 will allow us to live all the ideas written down in the reports!

incluD-ed: Would you recommend another city or region in Europe to organise such an event?

Eric Magnier: Yes, since inclusion is really a topic that needs to be approached in a participatory manner. We made it clear to all participants that even if APF was the initiator of the project, we were not the owner, and we had no claim of ownership. We didn’t want to impose something, but discuss, reflect and work together. It is the property of all the people who participated and who wanted to participate. This is an important message to communicate and it is key for having a successful initiative.

I had been surprised positively by the engagement of companies that in priori have nothing to do with the world of disability, or better said it’s not their everyday business even if they are sometimes confronted with disability issues due their employers or clients that have disabilities. Companies were also positively surprised that finally an association started a debate on all of the themes and issues related to disability and not, as usual in France, to just pick the physical, visual, or mental disability and to stay limited in the approach. So we succeeded in opening the topic and reflecting on the fact that disability might be an issue with problems and solutions that is the same for a mother with a stroller, a man with difficulties to walk or someone carrying heavy boxes, travellers etc. The topic, problem or question was the same. This has been a really positive and important starting point to open communication on inclusion and to introduce sincerity in the discussion.

In a few months, the concept of inclusion and the notion of ‘inclusive society’ spread. People who participated in the events or heard about them took ownership of the idea of inclusion and now say, “This is what that we want - an inclusive society!”

incluD-ed: Do you already know about concrete actions that have been started after the Regional States on Inclusion?

Eric Magnier: As far as I know, new projects started in autumn. Some projects that already existed and that did not run under the label “inclusion” claimed the word inclusion for their projects. An example is a two-year project on culture and disability run by social funds and the federation of social centres in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. The project had artistic activities completed by different people who lived in the neighbourhood but who previously had nothing in common. Among the participants were retired people, young people, unemployed people, workers, people who simply wanted to participate and people with disabilities etc. There was no pre-requisite to start, except ​​to enrol in a community centre in their neighbourhood.

Regarding the disability issues, we saw that there were a lot of things going on. What struck me is that the word “inclusion” appeared nowhere before. The organisers who then recognised the principles of inclusion at the Regional States then linked their action to the notion of inclusion. This made ​​it obvious that they identified with the principle of inclusion and that they wanted an inclusive society. I found this very interesting.

incluD-ed: So the role of the Regional States of Inclusion is to catalyse and support the whole movement towards inclusion? 

Eric Magnier: I think that's right, at least for this first edition we had a threefold objective: first, to make sure that the concept of inclusion was understood and to raise public awareness, and second to try to begin to unite people around it in order to bring it to life. We largely achieved our two objectives, even if we need to continue to work on them. Our next goal is to bring inclusion to life in each neighbourhood and in each territory. We will of course continue to publicise the inclusion principle and the concept to ensure that everyone adheres in his or her own way and at his or her own pace.

Another goal in 2013 was that at the end of the Regional States we have indicators to measure how inclusive our society is. What are the indicators that allow us measuring progress in inclusion? This goal then was not reached, it was perhaps too ambitious and too difficult to achieve. In France the concept of indicator already has much opposition like the whole measuring concept, quantization etc. and then the concept of inclusion is not that known and appropriated by the people. Finding indicators and measuring inclusion will stay our objective to try to see if we can measure where we are in 2014 in terms of inclusion to then continue to measure where we will be in the future, but we still don’t know how.

The measurement of the inclusive society is still a great open area. We will try to see how university researchers can help us with measurements. It is not only about all those concrete actions and how many people we have reached and informed, it is also the change in attitudes, in transport, in business, in school, in civic life, politicians etc.. These are all elements we would need to measure if we want to see things, but then that’s such a big project and we are not a measuring culture, but it will be important. The idea of ​​measuring inclusion and indicators has been adopted by several other people because we had displayed it as an objective. It is clear that others also say, "Yes, this is important, we need to measure it." Therefore, it is not only our idea as organisers, but at this point we still don’t know how to do that.

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For more information see the website for the Regional States of Inclusion Nord-Pas-de-Calais: inclusionnpdc.fr

To find out more about the different events “ Etats Régionaux de l’inclusion” visit http://presse.blogs.apf.asso.fr/archive/2012/09/24/les-etats-regionaux-de-l-inclusion-pour-faire-progresser-con.html

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Regional States of Inclusion – General information

Association des Paralysés de France (APF) and its partner organisations are organising an event called “Etats Régionaux de l’inclusion” in every French region to talk about how to foster the inclusion of people with disabilities. The project started in 2011 and will measure progress made throughout France in terms of inclusion annually until 2016.

The “Etats Régionaux de l’inclusion” gather associations, professionals, national and local politicians, businesses, civil society, health and social services, academics and people with all kinds of disabilities and their families to also discuss the notion of the « life project » of people with disabilities, one of the cornerstones of a French law passed on 11 February 2011. 

APF wants to address and present actions that favour the inclusion of people with disabilities into society. Practical experiences of people with disabilities related to work, training, schools, social, affective and sexual life etc. are presented and discussed.

The 5-year project is in line with APFs project, "Move the lines! For an inclusive society ", adopted in May 2011, is to express a vision for a future society, an inclusive society, open to all, in which every citizen can fully exercise their rights and live a decent life.

APF is strongly committed to the transformation of society and opts for an inclusive approach to all situations of disability. APF is actively involved in this transformation process claiming compliance with fundamental rights, accessibility and universal design.

APF has the ambition to make concrete progress towards inclusion. Therefore, every year an inventory of the annual progress of the inclusive society in each region will be made. This inventory will be based on the degree of social participation of persons with disabilities and their families in various areas of everyday life. The inventory will also help to identify obstacles and outcomes to be achieved from one year to the next.