Last week, the Organization UDAS, with its partners, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka and the Association of Citizens “Nešto više”, concluded the first part of the “Equally Different” campaign. It is an initiative funded by the European Union within the project “Communities of Different, but Equal Citizens”.
Author: Đorđe Krajišnik
All faces of accessibility
According to UDAS, this is a campaign that addresses the challenges of the inclusion of people with disabilities and advocates for their improvement with local communities and relevant institutions through activities in five target cities (Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Bijeljina and Trebinje) in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the period July 26 – 28 during round tables “All persons with accessibility II” organized in Sarajevo and Trebinje, representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities, city administration and competent institutions revised previously defined priorities of accessibility and inclusion of persons with disabilities.
“After a discussion with 100 organizations and local authorities in five target cities, it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to improve various aspects of accessibility in these cities, including not only the architectural accessibility of public institutions and environments, but also access to information on public services, web content of government institutions and public services in the community, which is especially important in risky situations and humanitarian crises,” it was pointed out during previously mentioned round tables.
In addition to the above, the need to enable partnership of organizations of persons with disabilities operating at the local level through their capacity building for successful involvement in decision-making processes was emphasized. Also, the establishment of advisory positions or councils for the rights of persons with disabilities in city administrations was seen as a priority, which would be performed by persons with disabilities in order to integrate disability issues into activities and development documents relevant to the local community.
Empathic-educational performances
As UDAS further states, in the past period, more than 400 BiH citizens in the mentioned cities participated in empathic-educational performances in which citizens had the opportunity to briefly put themselves in the position of PWD and find out the extent to which media content of public services is accessible to persons with disabilities. They then shared their thoughts through messages that they symbolically “pushed under the rug”.
“One of the messages of the citizens pointed out the untapped potential of people with disabilities: Today we are talking about 20 percent of our fellow citizens with disabilities, who are consumers, consumers of services and goods in the local community. The issue of their participation and contribution to the community must be a top priority through building a society of equal opportunities in which the capacities, talents and abilities of people with disabilities would come to full expression for the benefit of community development,” stated a representative of the Organization UDAS.
