December 2019

An update on our accessible lifts campaign, and other diverse campaign news.

Welcome to the latest episode of the EBU Access Cast, and as it happens the last one for the year 2019 and the teens of this century. As Christmas is drawing closer, we began this episode with some tech gadget Christmas gifts discussion. Mario bought a Fossil 5 Gen Wear OS smartwatch and shared his experience of setting it up for the first time. His brief demo of this device's possibilities can be found in the demo Time section of this show.

The Onkyo World Braille Essay Contest is a worldwide initiative planned and sponsored by Onkyo Corporation and The Braille Mainichi, two Japanese firms actively engaged in the promotion of braille. Its European strand is run by the European Blind Union.

The authors of the winning essays receive prizes made available by Onkyo and Braille Mainichi, particularly noteworthy for the 2019 edition; this year's Otsuki First Prize winner is 88 years old!

In 2019, EBU invited its member organisations to submit examples of best practices on the accessibility of mobility for visually impaired persons. These were compiled into a brochure available on the EBU Guidelines webpage.

January 4th is World Braille Day. Brailleliga / Ligue Braille wants to take this opportunity to highlight the importance of this writing system. Especially for this festive day, Manneken Pis will put on his blind schoolboy uniform and wear dark glasses all day.

20 years ago the Lithuanian Association of the Blind and Visually Handicapped (LASS) launched the programme Experience art through your senses.

In the year 2000, in cooperation with the National Gallery of Art, LASS implemented the first international project Experience art through your senses. The tactile exhibition ‘From Lespug‘s Venus to Rodin‘s Thinker’ was brought from France. The second exhibition ‘To feel nature together with Cezanne’, produced by the association ‘Artens’ was exposed in the Lithuanian National museum. Alongside the exhibition, a workshop for museum workers, art teachers and artists took place. And it was a breakthrough!

Thinking about the mobility of blind and partially sighted people, Cooptáxis launched, in partnership with ACAPO, Audio-Taxi, (audio accompaniment of the trip).

On October 26, the President of the Republic inaugurated Ana Sofia Antunes as Secretary of State for the Inclusion of People with Disabilities.

According to the Academic Network of European Disability Experts, institutional care continues to consume disproportionate levels of public expenditure, far outweighing that invested in community-based alternatives. There is a trend, albeit slow in many cases, away from such large institutional care arrangements in many countries towards community-based support solutions.

In order to boost this process, the COFACE Disability platform for the rights of persons with disabilities and their families produced the S.H.I.F.T. guide, which proposes 5 objectives, 15 tools, and 45 actions in the areas of Support, Human rights, Independence, Families and society Transition to achieve meaningful inclusion of persons with disabilities and their families.