Promoting the INDIGO project in Italy
we have developed the following actions and initiatives:
- A short report about INDIGO in national meetings attended by local
representatives of Italian Union of the Blind
- we have put a link to INDIGO project in our home page
- we sent short articles to our local audio magazines, for young
Visually Impaired as well as for elderly people
- we announced the INDIGO project in a mailing list called "Listavista",
which is very popular among school staff as well as in another list,
called "uicgen", which is devoted to parents of Visually and / or
multihandicapped children.
RESULTS
We felt that all of our correspondents / audience were
very interested in the idea of promoting a direct way of communicating
between individuals in Europe, who are experiencing the same problems.
We had much feedback in terms of questions about the major current
topics:
- school integration
- job opportunities
- social and individual welfare
- independent life
- digital accessibility
- support to families, especially where there is a multihandicapped
member
COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK
We feel that the idea of creating a comfortable and
at-hand way for communicating between individuals in Europe is a very
powerful means for promoting a higher awareness of our common values, as
Europeans. Unfortunately some communication barriers are a real obstacle
to its fulfillment. In particular language differences restricts this
wonderful opportunity to a small number of persons, although they show
real interest in it.
Possible perspectives.
We feel that we could develop a new project, aiming at facilitating
direct communication among Visually Impaired persons, using Internet
resources, with the employment of some specific linguistic filters. This
project could be based on on-line conferences, with the cooperation of a
team of good simultaneous interpreters, who could reduce time in direct
communication. This might occur through a sort of forum, with a specific
time for "question time", to leading members of European Institutions,
and with discussion time (not necessary on-line), to diffuse ideas and
to share feedback.
Antonio Quatraro
1/1/2004
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ITALY