VO1: You’re listening to the “Views News Podcast – The Big Thing,” Part One.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to this podcast series dedicated to the Erasmus project “The Big Thing”. This series is brought to you by some of the Belgian participants in the project who are represented by Views International.
Views International is an international association that operates as a network of organizations in 23 countries. Our projects aim to promote mobility and independence of young people with visual impairment. It is also a team of young Europeans, visually impaired or sighted, who are actively involved in specific projects at the European level.
Our objectives are to facilitate meetings between young European people, the majority of whom are visually impaired, to optimize their chances of being integrated into social, private, and professional life as autonomously as possible. Additionally, we aim to develop a spirit of solidarity and democracy specific to European culture.
In this series of episodes, we will give you a closer look at the Erasmus project “The Big Thing”, which involves the Spanish association Arkhe as the leading organization, supported by Views International and Zavod ODTIZ from Slovenia.
ANCA DAVID: Hello, my name is Anca David. I work for Views International as a project manager and coordinator of the Executive Office. As the name suggests, Views International is an international organization for and with visually impaired young persons.
We organize projects like training courses, individual internships, or volunteering projects under the European Solidarity Corps program, as well as group projects within Erasmus+. The project that brings us here today is a strategic partnership project.
In this strategic partnership, we are three organizations from three different countries: Slovenia, Spain, and Belgium. In “The Big Thing”, we organize national and international trainings within the framework of the European Training Strategy to train our specific target groups to become facilitators or trainers.
VO 2: So far, our project manager Anca. We had the opportunity to speak with the main facilitators of the project, Vicky and Daniele.
VIKI: Hello, I’m Viki. I’m from Spain, living in the beautiful Basque country, and I collaborate with the organization Arkhe from Toledo, Spain, which is the coordinating organization of The Big Thing, the project we are currently working on.
Our organization was founded almost 20 years ago to support youth leaders and camp leaders by training them.
Daniele: Hello from my side as well, I’m Daniele. I’ve been a freelance trainer for eight years now. I’m originally from Rome, Italy, but in the last ten years I’ve moved around a lot. Now I have two homes: one in Germany, close to Berlin, and one in Rome.
Together with Viki, we met in a co-working space in Austria while she was preparing the application for this project, “The Big Thing”. We were supporting each other with our respective projects at the time.
Then, after a while, Viki popped up in my messages—email, WhatsApp, I guess—and asked if I wanted to support her in this project.
VIKI: I’m really passionate about working with people with disabilities, creating opportunities for their participation, and training youth workers and trainers on how to work in mixed-ability groups, creating more inclusive spaces and environments.
This is important for promoting the participation of people with disabilities across Europe, as there aren’t many trainers with disabilities in the field.
DANIELE: I’ve had a few opportunities to work with people with autism, and in the past two or three years, I’ve led training courses with participants with disabilities. These experiences were powerful for me as a trainer because I learned how to include different tools or senses in my work, and it provided me with new perspectives. I’m grateful to Viki for involving me in this project.
VO 2: The Big Thing—a very interesting name. But what is the project really about?
VICKY: The idea of “The Big Thing” is to provide a learning experience and training for people who don’t usually have access to such opportunities, ensuring real inclusion in training at the European level.
Moreover, we aim to collect valuable information from these training processes and create a document that will be shared across Europe, with national agencies and other institutions. This document will serve as a guideline for creating inclusive environments in future trainings.
In training programs where both participants and trainers include people with diverse abilities, the impact is huge.
VO 2: But working together on a project like this—how does it feel?
VIKI: The collaboration between Daniele and me has been a very interesting process. Just two weeks ago, we were in Weimar for a training session where Daniele was my trainer. We’ve been able to create a strong dynamic between us, mixing friendship with a professional trainer-participant relationship.
DANIELE: Honestly, I was a bit scared initially because I’m coming from a challenging personal time and I was really tired. I worried that this might affect our friendship, but it’s been going in a positively surprising direction. We are quite different people, but we’re working on open communication.
VO2: If you want to create something like this yourself, how much time would it take?
VIKI: It took me one year to sit down and start drafting an idea to share with the partners involved in the project. Zavod ODTIZ from Slovenia and Views International from Belgium were very eager to be part of this process when I presented the idea to them. That’s how it all started.
We are now in the first phase of the project, training blind, deaf, and wheelchair users to become trainers. I’m still surprised at how everything is working out. The venue is huge, yet highly accessible, which allows us to move around freely and work comfortably.
DANIELE: During one conversation, I saw Viki’s eyes light up with excitement as she saw the participants mingling and working together. It was a truly inspiring moment for all of us.
We’ve already achieved more in this context and in a more harmonious way than I would have in other settings. For me, it’s been a “wow”, amazed. It was so natural, this eagerness to share and to be vulnerable in a positive way, to open yourself up and share so much with each other, even personal spaces, but also asking for support.
VIKI: Lately, I can tell you what “The Big Thing” is for me in just one sentence: a dream come true.
I’ve adopted this as a personal motto, and I think it’s something I should tattoo on my skin as well: Trust the process, trust the people, trust yourself.
VO 1: This was the first part of the Views News Podcast – The Big Thing.
We listened to the trainers, Viki and Daniele, and also to the Director of Views International, Anka.
In the second episode, we’re going to talk to the participants and hear about their stories.
We hope you enjoyed the podcast. See you next time.
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.