Conferences

EDSA initiates and supports conferences to all aspects of Down syndrome around Europe.
It aims to organise such conferences twice a year in one of the EDSA member states.
In the past years there were conferences held in et.al.:

2006 Genua/Italy and Prag/Czech Republic
2007 Paris/France and Pula/Croatia
2008 Luxemburg and Mallorca/Spain
2009 Sarajevo/Bosnia
2010 Bergen/Norway
2010 Pristina/Kosovo

The EDSA-Board meets at these occasions and once a year the general assembly is held along with the conference.
Besides that, there are many regional and national conferences organised by the DS-Associations in the different countries.

 

Conferences are also an opportunity to meet other professionals and parents and to exchange experiences.

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Review

Workshop in Budapest, Hungary, february 2012

Representatives of different organizations dealing with people with Down-Syndrome from Germany, Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Ukraine and Hungary met in Budapest on 11th February. These countries (and many others) are all members of European Down Syndrome Association, representing Central- and Eastern Europe.

Tania Mikhalenko from the ukrainian DS-organisation and board member of EDSA is talking about the situation in her country

The main goal of this assembly was to share ideas and experiences on the level of integration in these countries under the guidance of the president of EDSA, Cora Halder from Germany.
Representatives were introducing their national issues on early intervention, pre-school integration, school integration and experiences on labor integration. Beside the present situation they saved time for sharing their own plans and ideas for further development. This seemed to be a perfect forum for learning from each other, understanding one very important thing; these nations are running their organizations with a quite similar national background but with different results. These differences have to be discussed and understood better
The representative countries agreed on opening a more detailed cooperation with each other. They have planned concrete steps to be followed on (I) by creating a forum for closed communication for changing best practices and organizing nation – and worldwide awareness; (II) working on common fundraising projects and other financial sources with monitoring and sharing Calls and Grants; (III) finding ways with the tools of CSR campaigns for influencing the Government and EP. The Assembly named concrete responsible for the concrete tasks for making the common work more effective, to accomplish inclusion for all members in every segment of the society.

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EDSA Annual Meeting 2011

EDSA members met for the Annual General Assembly (AGA) on 15th/16th october in the Villa Aurelia in Rom.
Two new organizations were admitted as edsa members: the Hungarian Down Association and the turkish organization Down Sendromu Dernegi.
To elect the board was one of the topics on the agenda. New board members are Dinka Vukovic from Croatia, Tania Mykhailenko from Ukraine and Jaroslaw Pieniak from Poland. They replace Erik de Graaf from the Netherlands, Jacqueline London from France, Liana Vizlan from Romania and Branka Butorac from Croatia. New secretary-general is Cecile Dupas, France and Anna Contardi, Italy is vice president. The board is elected for a period of 3 years.
More information to all boardmembers: www.edsa.eu/html/board.html
Members had the possibility to present a project, examples of good practical experiences, interesting publications, campaigns etc.

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Training Course in Rome

AIPD organized a Training Course in "EU-project design" for EDSA members in Rom. The course was held in the Villa Aurelia (Congressional Centre) in Rome from 12th-15th october 2011. Participants came from 10 different edsa member organizations the trainer was Paola Vulterini, who has a longstanding experience in project design. She was assisted by Carlotta and Maria Giulia, both working in the international office of AIPD.
This was an excellent course, carefully prepared. All participants got a pendrive with all the information and presentations to be discussed during the 3 day course.
The course – 24 working hours in total – was very tight, started with an informational part: an overview over EU disability policy, the different EU main funding opportunities and the main social policy programes managed by the EU Commission. Call for proposals and guidelines for applicants were other topics.
During the training part Paola showed how project design is done from the very first start with a problem analysis up till the filling in of an application form. This in a very understandable and humorously way, with many good examples and with a lot of do-it-your-self exercises.

The costs of the training course were partly paid by edsa, partly by the participants themselves.
At the end of the course all were quite confident to be able and to have the courage, to prepare an application for a project. Most of us will probably start off with a "Youth in Action" project.
Thanks to AIPD for organizing this course and kudos especially to Paola!

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Conference
"Early Intervention for Children with Special Educational Needs"

Pristina, Kosovo
28-29 October 2010

Down Syndrome Kosova has organised and successfully hosted a conference focusing on early intervention and support for children with additional educational needs. This event was supported by the European Union and was the first of its kind in the western Balkans, with the aim of promoting regional communication and sharing experiences and knowledge related to early intervention and support.
The conference brought together many national, regional and international professionals, focusing primarily on the needs and education of children with Down syndrome. Professionals in education and training attended from the United Kingdom, Germany, Kosovo, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.
Establishment of a new Network took place on the second day of the conference when representatives of government and non-government organisations met and planned the format and functions of the Balkan Regional Early Support Network (BRESN)
This event is part of a 2 year project “Early Intervention for Children with Additional Educational Needs”, supported by the European Union and managed by the European Commission Liaison Office to Kosovo.

Andrew Boys
Director, Down Syndrome International

You will find the whole article here: http://www.ds-int.org/news/1480
For further information please visit the Down Syndrome Kosova website
http://www.downsyndromekosova.org/

For more Information see Downloads
→ Overall Objectives (265 KB) and
→ Agenda (269 KB)

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Outlook