Designing Your Tomorrow
Safe and Happy in the Society
SaHaSo
Our Adapted Instructional Tools
We are committed to making education accessible for everyone, especially when it comes to persons with disabilities. This is why we are offering, free of charge, two bespoke instructional tools: a full course of activities for instruction on emotional life, relationships and sexuality, and a short online module that may allow social workers and carers organise an opportunity for exchanges and meeting new friends for young (in age and at heart) people with mental disability.
We have developed the tools during the 2 years of the SaHaSo project, which the EU Erasmus+ programme co-founded. The tools are developed by a psychologist and social workers, all specialized in work with people with mental disability. They have been supported by an expert in teaching with technology and an EU policy analyst. You can read about their alternative and inventive methodology further down on this page. The tools are easily adaptable for the instructional needs of people with other disabilities too, or simply for those who need introduction to the basics of the emotional and sexual health issues so that they stay healthy and safe and can enjoy life without the risk of harassment.
We hope that you will find them helpful and inspiring.
- Access our Program for instruction in emotional, relationship and sexual life in English
- Accédez à notre Programme pour la vie affective, relationnelle et sexuelle en français
- Достъп до нашата програма за емоционален, релационен и сексуален живот на български
- Toegang tot ons programma voor Gevoelsleven, Relaties en Seksualiteit in het Nederlands
Latest News
We got published!
Gain an insight into the results of our programme and our perspective on the state policies for people with mental disability in Belgium and Bulgaria. The article is available in English and Bulgarian languages. We are most grateful to the Social Medicine magazine and the Medical University of Varna, and to the Bulgarian Journal for Public Health for appreciating the added value of our project and for giving it a public tribune towards the expert community
Our Mission :
We believe people with mental disability should be able to exercise their fundamental right to live safely and to the fullest. To have private space and a family.
They way we all do.
To have that, they must understand human relations, emotions, relationships, and intimacy, so that they engage in them without harm.
Just like all of us.
Sahaso
The Concept
The idea for the project emerged through the work of the 3 partner organisations with young people
with mental disabilities & social communication difficulties. They have observed that young people from this group may not recognize abuse when it happens, be it emotional, physical
or even sexual in nature. Raised in an overprotected
environment, they tend to do what they are told and may potentially consent to inappropriate
advances. Academic research shows that the risk of
abuse among people with learning disabilities is as much as 4 times higher than with the
general population, for example in UK (Momcheva,2005). The data was, regretfully, corroborated by the experience of our partners. Youth with mental disabilities needs pertinent social
and personal skills, to respond adequately, to be safe and to live happily in the society.
The way we all do.
We in numbers
1 project : small partnerships, Erasmus+
2 countries: Belgium and Bulgaria.
2 years.
3 partner organisations.
28 great young people.
Even more fellows and trainers in two Day Centres for work with people with mild – to – middle mental difficulties.
Our product
Bespoke program to introduce skills and information about relationships, emotional and sex life.
Transferable. Can be adapted to other social groups: with handicap or not; at different age or level of emotional development.
Our innovation and the strategy behind it
Daring a sensitive, not always comfortable matter
in a way that a very specific group can comprehend it.
Francophonic, hence European model, disseminated wider in the EU : EVRAS
Education de le Vie Relationelle, Affectif et Sexuelle
(You don’t speak French? 😉 Time to start learning!)
______________
Design & pilot of a new programme of activities to encourage confidence, communication skills and courage to react.
Breaking the silos:
building a pool of knowledge by merging expertise and art across forms, methods, fields and organizations.
Pushing the boundaries:
testing live, online sessions between young people with mental handicap.
3 forms of art
By professional artists.
Repetition, the magical method to sustain skills
for those with mental disability:
made fun & diverse.
Trash Art
To expose them to aesthetic appreciation, to give them the confidence to try - and achieve. To exercise their fine motorics - the control over one's own physique. To give them the confidence that they are creative!
Improvisational Theatre
To enable the personal contact in a way that they choose. To help them understand how to make friends and do fun things together.
Musical Videos
Because it's fun, and because making a video and dancing together brings people closer than anything else!
A digital
dimention
Probably the first ever
online hangouts
of young people
with mental handicap
Lessons learned from COVID :
Applied to expand horizons. And to have fun!
Digital communication is part of our lives.
Same goes for people with mental disability.
We are developing a methodology for online sessions between people with mental disability from different countries.
Our first pilot sessions were SOOO much fun!
Making friends through the screen is possible for everyone!
COVID-time lock-downs were particularly hard for people with mental handicap. They could not atten the Day centres where they meet people outside their immediate family circles and engaged in activities to sustain their skills. The Day Centres closed. However, their staff kept working. They did whatever it took to reach out to those that relied on their social care. They did it with whatever tools they had : most of the time, with their own mobile phones and tablets. They discovered digital skills they never thought they would need.
With our online sessions, we push the boundaries and build into a method the lessons learned from that time of crisis.
We are ambitious to prove that crisis can be an opportunity, not only trouble.
Interested in using our programme?
Contact in Belgium: tatiana.levceva@u-thrive.org
Contact in Bulgaria: dc.riviera.vn@gmail.com
Meet the team
Tatiana Levceva
U Thrive europe, BE
Policies of the European Union. Teaching with technology.
Project management.
Maria Chankova
association for support to people with mental disability, day centre riviera, BG
National policy Bulgaria. Project management.
Work with people with mental disability.
Sophie Vankriekinge
Les jardins de 8me jour - tago, BE
National policy Belgium. Programme design.
Aida Pana
u thrive europe, BE
Hybrid teaching. Transformational learning.
Tania Momcheva
association for support to people with mental disability - day centre riviera, BG
Work with people with mental disability. Abuse prevention.
Programme design.
Jonathan Landa
les jardins de 8me jour - tago, BE
Work with people with mental disability.
Lea
Quéniart-Sanchez
les jardins de 8me jour - tago, BE
Work with people with mental disability.
