A group of four young adults with intellectual disabilities from the Equal Partners Foundation recently travelled to Brussels to join a group of 20 people with intellectual disability from Italy, Ireland, Spain, Denmark and Hungary and take part in an EU-funded Grundtvig project called 'My Opinion, My Vote', concerning disabled people's active citizenship and voting rights.

The Maltese participants - Ivan Mangion, Sylvana Cassar, Daniel Micallef and Maria Zarb, accompanied by Juan Camilleri and Louisa Grech from the Equal Partners' Foundation - had a very active week. They visited the European Parliament and the European Commission and leart how both institutions functioned. They took part in workshops and tested out educational material related to decision-making and knowledge about Europe.

One innovative and challenging activity was a voting simulation, where three particpants were asked to act as politicians in an electoral campaign, and the others had to choose their preferred candidate by secret ballot. The election process was simulated, votes counted and the winner announced.

The participants also met Members of the European Parliament from their respective counties, and the Maltese group met MEP Simon Busuttil. At the meeting, a discussion was held regarding the voting rights of persons with intellectual disability and Dr Busuttil agreed to look into what could be done for such people whose vote had been taken away from them.

The project, which is in its early stages, will look into the current status and opinions of people with intellectual disability concerning their voting rights in each of the six countries. It also aims to raise awareness as well as produce educational material which would be used to help people with intellectual disability express their opinions, reach their own decisions and vote in all the local, national and European elections.