Summary of The DEM Presentation

The presentation was held on 30^th January 2016 and on 31^st January 2016 in Thessaloniki. The place was given by the organization SOPSI with whom we cooperate lately. As target group, we chose social workers as we have many volunteers who represent this group. Ten people participated. On 30^th January we presented the theoretical part of DEM in an interactive way ( by writing down the basic things on big papers) and we showed to the target group some scenes from movies which included stories with disabled.. The second day ( 31^st January) we did the activities which DEM suggests and we added some role playing e.g. we closed the eyes of participants in order to feel like blind people in order  to gain a little empathy. The participants were also separated in groups and they wrote down their opinion about different kind of disabilities and then they presented their opinions to others. In addition, we discussed about the problems in families who have members with disabilities, as a request of the participants. They underlined that the real problem is in the state and in families. If families are not well informed and educated about disabilities, they will create obstacles in integration of these people. The participants found some of the activities boring and not helpful and they asked for role playing, focused not only on business but also on families and education. The whole presentation lasted 8 hours (4 on Saturday, 4 on Sunday). We used some material also for the situation in Greece and we concluded that the people who are members of minorities, confront integration problems.