REC19
In 2019, EBU and its members carried out activities to foster the development of an inclusive Europe, where blind and partially sighted (BPS) citizens have the same rights and opportunities as other citizens.
View REC19VISAL
Visually impaired (VI) seniors are one of the most marginalised communities in terms of lifelong learning. The VISAL training course is tailor-made to both the age- and disability-related specific learning needs of elderly VI persons.
INTERGENERATIONAL KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE (INTERGEN)
The INTERGEN project was developed to look at how to bring different generations together so that knowledge and experience are shared, to empower junior and senior people with visual disabilities.
EVADER
eVADER was a European project, funded through the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, to address the road safety concerns that pedestrians will have to face with the future marketing of electric vehicles in Europe.
THE EUROPEAN ACCESSIBILITY ACT
Former legislation had mainly focused on a specific single sector and EBU advocated the need for a single, coherent set of rules. In December 2015 the European commission proposed a directive for a wide reaching “European accessibility act (EAA), which addressed accessibility as an overarching requirement in various sectors and established mandatory accessibility functional requirements. After long and difficult interinstitutional negotiations, eventually the EAA was adopted on 9 April 2019.
SILENT CARS
The growing number of electric vehicle (EV) and electric-hybrid vehicles (EHV) is a fundamental concern to blind and partially sighted people. As much as we appreciate the environmental benefits and the noise reduction of our daily road traffic, the introduction of these vehicles has created potential life and independence threatening hazards for blind, partially sighted and other vulnerable pedestrians.
PAY-ABLE AND ACCESSIBLE PAYMENT TERMINALS
Technology plays an ever-increasing role in our modern society and often offers many advantages. However, there are also downsides. Payment terminals, such as the devices used in shops and restaurants when paying by card or the built-in payment devices in ticketing machines used for public transport, need to be accessible to millions of disabled and elderly consumers in Europe. We campaigned for barrier free access to payment terminals for all. Initially payment terminals were not included in the scope of the proposed European Accessibility Act presented in 2015, and we obtained to have them included in the draft in 2017, and this was never questioned again up till the adoption of the EAA in April 2019. This put an end to our campaign.