Iida’s project in Austria – Beyond borders

While being a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps in Vienna, Iida put in place her own initiative of solidarity : Beyond borders

The project was implemented in Grenzenlos’ social media account : “My aim was to collect stories and experiences from ESC volunteers with disabilities, to represent the diversity in the program and encourage other people with disabilities to try volunteering by hearing and seeing real life examples.

First, I posted a video, where I talked about my experience and tried to reach the target group to contact me to share their stories too. Then I started to contact people myself by email and asked if they wanted to join to my project. I reached a few people and two of them wanted to join in the end.

I believe on the thought that representation is one of the most effective way to add knowledge and experiences to understand other people better. You can also see from the stories that each of us wanted to change the general idea about disabled people and encourage other people with disabilities to understand the opportunities that they have.“

Check the video for the call of this project

This initiative was supported along the CLIC project. C.L.I.C. for “Coordinating Locally in order to Increase More Changes with  the European solidarity Corps” is a cooperation partnership we participate  in with 9 other like-minded organisations from 9 European countries. Together, we want to increase the impact and the visibility of the European  Solidarity Corps in our communities, while providing young people with a  strong educational value along their volunteering projects.