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IDEA – Inclusive Design Empowerment Action

IDEA – Inclusive Design Empowerment Action is an Erasmus+ funded project that offers an inclusive educational model where creativity, co-design, and digital fabrication become tools for empowerment, professional growth, and social participation.

The project was launched based on a shared conviction: education, creativity, and innovation must be accessible and transformative for all learners, including adults with disabilities. Too often, digital environments and learning spaces such as FabLabs and makerspaces are designed with assumptions that exclude or marginalize individuals with diverse abilities. IDEA was developed to address this gap: to offer an inclusive educational model where creativity, co-design, and digital fabrication become tools for empowerment, professional growth, and social participation.

The project takes inclusion as a starting point, not a final adjustment. Inclusion here is not simply about providing physical access but about enabling equitable participation from the outset, embedding accessibility and diversity as guiding values. This means recognizing and valuing differences as essential resources for learning, innovation, and community building. The adults with disabilities who participate are not passive recipients of assistance, but active contributors, co-designers, makers, and innovators.

Objectives

The main objectives of the IDEA project are to:

  • Improve the competences of adult educators in delivering creative, digital-oriented, inclusive educational paths;
  • Empower adults with disabilities to become makers, designers, and entrepreneurs capable of navigating and shaping today’s complex and digital world as active and valued participants.

Partners

The project is led by Fonix AS (Norway), and is implemented together with five other organisations:

Contacts

  • Benedetta Pesce, European Platform for Rehabilitation: bpesce@epr.eu

Visit the IDEA project website here.