My Own Life. Promoting the Inclusion and Independence of Visually Impaired 18-25 Year Old Young People

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Visually impaired young people are invisible in the society and live a life that is secluded. Their education level is lower and unemployment rates higher. They live with their parents even at the adult age of 18-25 years and older. They are clearly isolated from the rest of the society and their peers, yet their needs and requests for services are unknown both in Estonia and Finland. The aim of this project is to find new ways for working with young people with visual impairment to improve their feeling of coping and life management. Through these changes we hope to promote independent living, studying, working and overall inclusion to the society. To develop efficient ways of reaching these goals, we need to compare the situation in both countries and find models for reaching visually impaired young people. Both in Estonia and in Finland, the situation of the visually impaired young people is highly polarized: while majority of the young people with visual impairment are struggling to some point, there is a minority that is doing exceptionally well. With the help of this minority, we aim to find out what obstacles visually impaired young people are facing that complicate studying and working and look into the factors that make moving out and independent living challenging, and try to find ways for overcoming these obstacles. One known factor are parents that can be overprotective. To reach the actual goal of this project, we will organize workshops for the target group and their parents. These workshops will consist of peer support groups and guidance by professionals and mentors, aiming to offer concrete help and solutions to the problems that cause seclusion. The experience and ideas we gain from these workshops will further help us to offer better services for the visually impaired youth in both countries.

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