ÖJAB (Austrian Young Workers Movement) is a generation-connecting youth organisation, independent of any political party or religious obligation. As a non-profit organisation, it offers more than 4,300 places to stay for students, pupils, apprentices, young workers, senior citizens and refugees in a total of 25 ÖJAB-houses nationwide, thus making it one the largest residency organisations in Austria. At present around 3,800 young people, 470 senior citizens and 55 refugees are staying in 21 student hostels and youth residences, in 3 senior citizens' residences and nursing homes, in 1 intergenerational residency and in 1 intercultural hostel. Over 500 employees help to achieve this goal on a daily basis, with many more offering their highly treasured services on a voluntary basis.
ÖJAB has three main areas of operation: * Youth * Senior citizens and generations and * Education, Europe, Development co-operation The organisation’s primary objective behind all of these activities is to bring people together, provide op-portunities for them and help them learn from one another – in residences, from different parts of Austria, Europe and the world, from different social backgrounds, of different ages, with different (political) viewpoints and religions.
ÖJAB is continuously striving to foster the promotion and integration of disadvantaged people and people with special needs. Therefore, for many years, the BPI of ÖJAB (institute for professional training and development of ÖJAB) successfully carries out various qualification measures and courses in order to foster and train people with special needs. The BPI is a private school which is run by ÖJAB and officially recognised by the Austrian authorities.
In Vienna and Lower Austria the BPI offers orientation and training courses for youngsters and young adults. The majority of the course participants come from socially-disadvantaged backgrounds and often have special needs or disabilities. Vocational training and educational courses as well as integrative, so extended apprenticeship training for people with special needs are also offered. For people with special needs BPI provides activating and vocational training with a socio-educational support. Youngsters and adults with disadvantages experience through those activities support both on a professional and personal level. In this GRUNDTVIG project ÖJAB will be the only partner from Austria.
Many years of experience gathered by courses, trainings and activities will be used as positive impacts to this project. Insights and empirical foundations (based on a successful training called INTEGRAL) will be included in the project and will be forwarded and shared with all other European partners. INTEGRAL, funded by the Federal Social Welfare Office, is for example a policy measure for young people with special educational needs or with a 50% minimum of a physical, mental, intellectual or multiple disabilities. Personal, individual and conceptual experiences will be deepened and shared with all partners on a European level. Furthermore, expertise and skills concerning meetings and event public relations will pour into the project as well as experiences and results from transnational mobility programs.
In July 2012 Austria enacted the National Action Plan for people with disabilities in order to implement the UN convention for equal rights of PWD which Austria also signed in 2007. The National Disability Action Plan was designed in 2011, is based on the Disability Action Plan of the European Union and includes a ten-year-plan (2011 – 2020) for the actual implementation of equal rights for PWD in Austria. Among other things the implementation of equal treatment refers to areas such as judicial acceptance, education, labour market and appreciation of the family. By means of all our activities and measurements ÖJAB supports the National Disability Action Plan and fosters the common path of inclusion for people with disabilities.
Contact
Adriana Bassani, M.A.
European and International Cooperations
OeJAB – Oesterreichische Jungarbeiterbewegung (Austrian Young Workers Movement)
Head office,
Mittelgasse 16,
1062 Wien
Austria
Phone: +43 1 597 97 35 - 114
Fax: +43 1 597 97 35 - 889
E-mail: adriana.bassani@oejab.at
Web: www.oejab.at
FB: www.facebook.com/oejab.at ZVR: 741400795