Another year of the “Accessible School” project is behind us. The ongoing pandemic presented us with many challenges, but work on the project continued at full speed. We conducted two rounds of recruitment for primary school administrators – we continued the first round announced in 2020 and launched the second. Over 120 administrators applied for the second round. Most of them were local government units, but there were also some community organizations. The evaluation committee had their hands full conducting the formal and then the substantive assessment. Despite the periodic announcements of short lockdowns, our partner, the Regional Development Institute Foundation in Krakow, traveled the length and breadth of the country, covering 20,037 km (half the Earth’s circumference!) and visiting 123 primary schools to conduct accessibility audits. During this difficult time, they prepared over 120 audit reports.
There were moments when the hotline (three email inboxes, four phone numbers) was red-hot. Interested authorities and schools wrote and called, wanting to learn details about participating in the project, preparing the application, the material and financial schedule, or clarifying any issues contained in the audit report.
We also saw our first tangible successes! We signed grant agreements with 13 governing bodies from the first round of recruitment, for an amount exceeding PLN 16,700,000, and we hope to sign more at the beginning of the new year.
The money bag is still almost full, so intensive work awaits us in the coming year. We will complete school recruitment and audits, sign grant agreements with applicants qualified in the second round of recruitment, and monitor and support our participants in achieving our common goal – making schools accessible.
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The “Accessible School” project was created for primary schools requiring improved accessibility.
The project’s goal is to develop an Accessible School Model that will set standards in the areas of architectural, technical, educational, and social accessibility, as well as in school organization and procedures, and to test it in 60 schools across Poland. PLN 40 million will be allocated for this purpose, distributed in the form of grants.
Support will be provided primarily to entities from smaller towns and to entities that participated in monitoring the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The “Accessible School” project is implemented by the Cooperation Fund Foundation and the Institute for Regional Development Foundation, as part of the Knowledge, Education, Development Operational Programme 2014-2020, as a pilot project of the “School Without Barriers” initiative – Accessibility Plus programme.
The project is scheduled for implementation in 2019-2023.
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