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On April 22nd 2020, the European Disability Forum organised the fourth of a series of webinars about the Innovation to Inclusion project (also called i2i programme). 

Four speakers were invited to talk about Labour Market Data for persons with disabilities. After their presentation, there was some time for questions and answers.

• Mark Carew (Leonard Cheshire) spoke briefly about i2i’s approach to disability data and how i2i supports a good quality collection of disability data.
• Valentina Stoevska (Department of Statistics, International Labour Organisation) explained the objectives of the statistical data on the labour market characteristics of persons with disabilities. She talked about the use of Washington Group questions on the disability Labour Force Surveys. To conclude her presentation, Ms Stoevska briefly illustrated with some statistics the employment characteristics of persons with disabilities.
• Robert Buluma (Governance, Peace and Security statistics of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics) briefly provided some information on the development of a disability monograph.
• Anderson Gitonga (United Disabled Persons of Kenya (UDPK)) spoke about the importance of the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in data gathering and touched upon the technical working group that has been formed in Kenya.

On February 6th 2020, the European Disability Forum (EDF) organised a webinar about the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). The AVMSD is a directive which sets out the rules for audiovisual media services and adapts them to the new media consumption realities and affects all market players (TV broadcasters, video on-demand platforms and video sharing platforms) in the European Union. The AVMSD entered into force on 19th December 2018 and its transposition period will end on 19th September 2020.

This webinar was conducted by Marie Denninghaus, EDF Policy Coordinator and was supported by Raquel Riaza, Events and Administration Officer and by other colleagues from EDF‘s office. The webinar was accessible for persons with disabilities providing live captioning and sign language interpretation. It was recorded and it will be available on EDF’s website.

The first speaker was Lara Orlandi, from the European Commission, who is Policy Officer in DG CONNECT. She gave a broad overview about the main AVMSD objectives and provisions as she was part of the team which prepared and negotiated this legislation. The second speaker was Alejandro Moledo. He is Policy Coordinator at EDF. He spoke about the provisions of the AVMSD with reference to accessibility for persons with disabilities and how to make use of this legislation to advance on media accessibility.

In April and May 2020 the Innovation to Inclusion (i2i) programme, supported disabled persons organisations (DPOs) to complete a qualitative survey of 312 people with disabilities (including 147 women) in Bangladesh and Kenya to understand the impact of COVID-19 and measures to prevent its spread. The survey - a descriptive survey with a representative sample of people with physical, intellectual and multiple disabilities, visual and hearing impairments and mental health issues in the Nairobi, Mombasa and Kasumu areas of Kenya and in the Dhaka, Sylet and Chattogram districts of Bangladesh - has been part of wider efforts by DPOs in the two countries to test and embed data driven advocacy processes towards realising CRPD.   

Topics covered included: employment and job insecurity; access to general pulic information; PPE; access to support; assistive tecnology and discrimination

"To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December), the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), IRU (World's Road Transport organisation) and EDF jointly publish an 'Accessibility Guide' to improve customer service for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility.

The publication aims to show that service quality and inclusiveness are of paramount importance for the public transport sector.

The guide is one of the initiatives that we are undertaking to raise awareness amongst staff about the barriers still existing to a fully inclusive public transport system and how to best overcome them. It is targeted at public transport staff regularly interacting with passengers and can be used in the context of disability awareness trainings.

Gunta Anca, EDF Vice-President: “With this accessibility guide we want to give simple tips and advice on how to improve service for persons with disabilities. There is really nothing to be afraid of – we are passengers like everyone else, just sometimes we need a little bit more of your support and understanding.”

Thomas Avanzata, Director of the European Department at UITP: “An average person does not know much about persons with disabilities. With this guide, we hope to close the knowledge gap for our bus drivers and be able to offer an improved service to persons with disabilities. We are very happy about the cooperation with EDF and IRU and optimistic that such small initiatives can make a difference on the ground, especially at times where financial resources for costly infrastructure works are scarce.”

Rémi Lebeda, who leads IRU’s work on passenger transport in Europe: “This accessibility guide is an excellent tool to improve the quality of service offered to people with disabilities by drivers and operators. We thank EDF and UITP for their excellent cooperation in working on this important issue. In further recognition of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities the guide will also be available in accessible format.”