The issue of Aversive Discrimination has not yet been addressed openly and directly in the field of adult education.

Nowadays discrimination is not what it used to be in the past, luckily. In almost all sectors the level of awareness of those who work or volunteer or study in adult education excludes any direct discrimination. This fact is also supported by legislation, ethical principles, awareness of rights, etc. However, in the last twenty years numerous authors and groups have been debating the aversive aspects of discrimination.

UAV Partners are organizations addressing some type of diversity, and thanks to their work in the respective fields, are conscious of the presence of aversive discrimination in many educational materials used in adult education.

They wish to address the issue openly and also to start a debate on intersectional discrimination (being a woman and a lesbian, being a man belonging to an ethnic minority and having a disability, etc.) and how this influences the learning paths of learners.

UAV final aim is to promote the idea of formal and non-formal adult education really inclusive and accessible to all. UAV will be widely disseminated through the partners’ networks and through numerous localized outputs (handbook, website, leaflets, newsletters) which will be cross-tested by the partners.

Cooperation on this project for IRBF is particularly interesting because of number of reasons.

Bulgaria is lagging behind in many issues, including fight against discrimination and violence. We will gain precious experience from working with other European partners on sharing best practices and learning from their expertise. We need to learn how to face discrimination issues in education processes and this project will be a great opportunity for that. We would be happy in later stage to share our learning with our partners on a national level, NGOs, active in the field of social inclusion, gays and lesbians rights, women’s rights, youth and many others.