Breaking Barriers 2014 - Almost Adult: Experiencing Inclusive Ideas Of Non-Formal Education For The Transition From School To Work Life For Youngsters With Disabilities In PT And DE Coimbra and Altdorf near Nürnberg (Nuremberg) have something in common: Charming places breathing a lot of history, Universities since medieval times, and famous centres for the rehabilitation of (little) children, youngsters and adults with any kind of physical handicaps. The first contact between experts from both sides took place in 2001 at a Conference in Marburg/Germany "Building Up European Networks Of Knowledge Transfer" in the field of experiential learning through the outdoors - prefix: disability. And that is what they did and will do: exchange knowledge and gather experiences. In 2014, for the first time as a bilateral youth meeting, they will achieve that in two steps: First, 13 young people from Germany (aged 16 to 24) visit Portugal at the end of june, led and assisted by four professionals: 1 occupational therapist, 1 teacher for special education, 2 care assistants - 9 of the youngsters having severe learning disorders caused by any physical reason and called disability. Second, a very similar group from Coimbra (10 youngsters and 5 companying professionals) will visit Germany at the beginning of octobre. In Altdorf, close to Nuremberg, it is just in the houses of the former University from 1571 where Rummelsberger Diakonie started to work with "Crueppelfuersorge" in 1925, called Wichernhaus Altdorf. It offers special school to about 220 pupils and sheltered work and occupation for about 80 adults. The school has got high reputation for their educational work and for the inclusive impact on the small town with around 15000 inhabitants. For good reasons it is the APC Coimbra (Associaton for Cerebral Palsy) that enjoys the same high reputation for their extraordinary work. In june they will arrange a camp close to their "Quinta Conraria", a wide area close to Coimbra,where they offer a pedagogical farm, just one thing out of a big variety of vocational trainings, work, assistance, residence - many activities to help their clients to make a good living. "Empowerment" is what they go for, in Coimbra as well as in Altdorf. To go travelling like so many young Europeans do - for disadvantaged youngsters a rare experience! To see how they could live and learn, if they had been born in that other country, to have the chance to do as a guest what the locals do: Go for vocational training, go for hippotherapy, play wheelchair-boccia in their leisure time, travel to the sea shore and smell the Atlantic Ocean... In Altdorf the Portuguese guests will help harvesting tons of apples that will be produced to finest juice at once, they will stay under the open sky - even overnight in the camp at the Harnbacher Mill. Following their European Inspirations some staff from Wichernhaus are working hard to develop that place to the first "Adventure-for-all-Centre" in Germany. Anyone is invited to raft on the small river Pegnitz, everybody is invited to go rockclimbing in the surrounding "Franconian Switzerland" - anybody is invited to access nature in every thinkable way. If the youngsters will get the chance to go on these journeys with funding of the European Union, they will return open minded, and they will spread their experiences of what is possible if humans take their heads, hands and hearts together and enable each other instead of disabling. Young persons with disabilities must not live disadvantaged, if they take the chance and we take them as they are - it's a matter of experience, especially helpful in transition to become adult, man or woman. Let's call it "Breaking Barriers".