Short Bio

I am Jolita Kavaliauskienė, a social worker at the Young Adults Day Center. I have been working with young adults with intellectual disabilities for 13 years. My goal is to give people with disabilities the opportunity to engage and actively participate in physical activity and thus successfully integrate into society through sports activities. For me, communicating and working with young adults with disabilities is a learning experience which enables us to learn new skills together and also build true friendships and make each other happy.

My EPALE

I first learned about the EPALE platform in 2019, when I was invited by my colleagues to participate in the EPALE conference Independent Learning for Adult Education. At this conference, I was impressed by the competence and professionalism of the speakers. It was very interesting to listen, discuss and hear very interesting and startling things about adult education. Then I realized that I needed to sign up to this platform in order to discover useful materials for improving my work as well as to find various sources and articles on adult education. I was also very interested in other people's projects, reports about them and success stories. As our institution has many Erasmus + projects, I decided to present my coordinated projects, products and results.

My Story

The Young Adults Day Center is an institution that never lacks innovative working methods and believes that teamwork is the key to the success of the institution. For each project, a team of employees work together to grow as professionals and improve their personal competencies. It took me a while to develop in this area.

I want to briefly tell you my story. A few years ago, I was invited to participate in an international project that was conducted in English. This suggestion shocked me because my knowledge of English was poor and I was very scared of what others might think of me. After the first meeting, I felt even worse. I felt panicked and scared about this challenge, and withdrew from the project. After this decision, no one criticised me. I only heard the following words: “It is your choice, but you have missed out on the opportunity to take a step forward and deepen your knowledge of English, get to know another culture and improve your social communication skills. It is also your choice to be afraid, to stand still or to take a big step forward and constantly learn, to grow as a person and to improve the quality of your social work…” Then I realized that I couldn’t just stand still. I needed to learn new things, accept new challenges and no matter how hard they were, through overcoming them I began to grow and develop.

I am currently coordinating two major international sports projects.

I Do Sport: Facing Intellectual Disabilities through Sport, No. 613369-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-SPO-SSCP.

The aim of the #IDOSPORT project is to encourage people with mobility and intellectual disabilities to play sports as actively as possible, to promote voluntary sports and to provide equal opportunities for everyone to play sports, to help them understand the importance of sport for health. This transnational project is a great tool for social inclusion and integration.
Five countries are participating in the project: Lithuania, Spain, Hungary, Greece and Italy. All project partners have extensive experience in conducting sporting activities in their countries. The Covid-19 pandemic has significantly adjusted project plans, but we regularly organize remote meetings and share good practices.
During the implementation of this project, I came up with the idea to create individual sports programs for each service recipient of our institution according to their physical abilities and needs. So, with the team, we started to develop a new innovative sports method for increasing sports activity using information technology. I am very proud of the result. These individual programs encourage them to enjoy their personal development and accomplishments. By integrating information technologies into sports, this method has shown their independence, self-confidence, and improvement in the use of IT increase, which is crucial for maintaining motivation.
If you wish to have a look at the individual sports exercise channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxQrS-xxed89K4jECg88bnA

U.A.N. Sport - Uniqueness-Abilities-Normalities Sport, No. 613160-EPP-1-2019-1-IT-SPO-SSCP

The #UAN SPORT project aims to promote more equal opportunities for people with mental, physical and other disabilities and to encourage people (with or without disabilities) to spend their leisure time more actively. The specific objectives of the project are: to share experiences and practices in promoting social inclusion through sport; to promote cooperation between the sports sector and relevant stakeholders in the field of social inclusion of people with disabilities; raise awareness of the role of sport in social inclusion.
The project contributes to promoting and ensuring that everyone, especially young people with disabilities, have access to sport in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Article 30) and the European Disability Strategy .
Five countries are participating in the project: Italy, Greece, Lithuania, Germany, Slovakia. Of these: 2 sports clubs, 2 sports federations and associations, and one public institution which has experience and special programs for social integration through sport.
The project is aimed at international practice and the exchange of ideas. The project participants will get a lot from it, and the project will enable the strengthening of EU cooperation between sports organizations and relevant stakeholders working with people with disabilities, and the promotion of social inclusion through sport.
Curious to know more about the project activities? Please visit the link: https://www.instagram.com/uansport_official/ and https://www.facebook.com/UANSportOfficial

Erasmus + projects for me are a window into the future, changing attitudes towards life, work, contributing to a full-fledged personality development and encouraging me to do more in life.

As I took on new challenges, I saw myself as a competent and mature personality in both the professional and personal field but someone who is still learning and growing. I am happy to receive more and more tasks and responsibilities that help to stimulate new thoughts and ideas. I realized that through lifelong learning, I can achieve great things in my work and personal life and share my knowledge with the people around me.
Now I know that the right choices can bring success and make a person happy. This is my success story!

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