Ressources

CYPRUS

Pancyprian Organization of the Blind
P.O. Box 23511
1684 Nicosia
Cyprus

Report on the participation of the Pancyprian Organization of the Blind as partner to the EBU INDIGO Project

With reference to the participation of our Organization as partner to the European Year INDIGO website project of the European Blind Union, I would like to inform you as follows.

Our Organization started with the dissemination of information about the website immediately after the launch of the project.

There was a short announcement at the Annual General Assembly of the Organization held in Nicosia last June, in addition to references and discussions about the project at the ordinary meetings of the Youth Committee, the Women's Committee and the International Affairs Committee of our Organization.

All our members and friends were also informed about the project through a circular letter, which was distributed by mail to more than 2000 people.

In addition, our Organization included an article about the website and the project in our Newsletters. The Newsletter in the Greek language where the information was included, was send last July to all our Members and friends in Braille, cassette, large type and regular print. The English article was published in our international newsletter "The Cyprus Braille" (Issue no. 5 - August 2003), which was sent to more than a 100 Braille readers in fifty countries and more than a 1000 subscribers of the electronic form of our newsletter all over the world. This article also contained a list of the participating countries and the addresses and other details of the contact person of each country.

We have also translated in to Greek the appropriate text, which was then incorporated into the microsite of the main INDIGO website. Furthermore, a link was created into the website of the Pancyprian Organization of the Blind “pot-cyprus.com”, to enable interested members to access the INDIGO project website from our website.

In contrast to other projects and international activities of our Organization the involvement of our members in this project and the response to our efforts was not as expected.

This is due to the fact that the number of blind internet users in Cyprus is relatively low. Our members are not used to projects, in which, as they suppose, they have to share personal experiences and information.

Our Organization believes that the project contributed significantly in raising awareness of the European Year of People with disabilities. The European Year Indigo website project also achieved its main goal of promoting knowledge and experiences between blind people and their organizations and enhanced understanding and cooperation in Europe.

Christakis Nicolaides
Link Person
EBU INDIGO Project
Pancyprian Organization of the Blind

CZECH REPUBLIC

We think that we have fulfilled all criteria for the Indigo project in our
country.
We promoted the project several times via our mailing list, where is about
550 members - blind and partially sighted by whom we can expect they have
access to internet. Unfortunately, our members are still not used to such
ways of discussion - they prefer to discuss their problems over a glass of
beer than to write them a discuss them this way. This was a very good
experience for us, we will have to intensify our work in this field and try
to learn our people not to be bashful and to have no fear to discuss their
problems with people that they don't know.

Please be so kind and let us know if this report is sufficient for you and
if you need to add something.

With best regards,
Vaclav Polasek

DENMARK

Report from the Danish Association of the Blind

In Denmark we have promoted the Indigo project by writing an article about the project in our magazine (RP-NYT). We have also promoted the project on our website: (www.dkblind.dk/Soegning/Links/Udenlandske_links/indigo.htm)

We haven't really received any contributions made on our country’s micro site, but maybe that is because they have been made in English, and therefore didn't need to be translated.

We hope that the project will continue - a European web forum is always needed.

FINLAND

European Blind Union (EBU) European Year website

We translated all the material we received for the site. We promoted the site in our federation magazine and information was sent to our regional member organizations. We also told about the site in our news group for visually disabled people.

Unfortunately the use of the site has been poor. We have received and translated only one message for the site. In our news group there was one message from a visually disabled person complaining about the fact that English was used on the site. That was partly true because there are still some texts on our micro site which have not been translated although we have sent the texts in Finnish.

Best Regards

Kaisu Miettinen and Timo Kuoppala

ITALY

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

EBU Indigo - Project Review from the United Kingdom

Link Person for the project in the UK:
Nolan Quigley
Assistant European Campaigns Officer
Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB)
105 Judd Street
London
WC1H 9 NE
UK
Tel. +44 (0) 20 7391 2087
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7388 2706
email Nolan.Quigley@rnib.org.uk

1 How was the Indigo project promoted in the UK?

The INDIGO web site was promoted and publicised in the UK in various ways by RNIB. On RNIB’s web site we drafted a short summary of the project which also featured a link so that people interested could click straight on to the INDIGO site. We publicised and promoted the project internally within RNIB by email, through the intranet and through briefings. We also sent out information about the project to RNIB’s campaign supporters, a network of grass-roots campaigners and local activists.

At the initial stage, RNIB’s web accessibility experts looked over the site and made several suggestions for improvement to the site. We forwarded these to the web master who made the necessary alterations very quickly and efficiently.

2 What were the results?

Several comments were left on the site and on the UK microsite from people based in the UK. Issues raised included a need for information in accessible formats and problems that blind people can have access documents in pdf format. A respondent based in the UK communicated with a Finnish respondent on the issue of the employment of disabled people.

3 Further Comments or Feedback on the project

This was first and foremost and ambitious project, highly experimental in nature. The site was set up and launched in a very short timeframe, 1 year into its life, in web forum terms it is still in its infancy. The site would definitely benefit from being continued and developed in future years so that it can become better known and that blind and partially sighted Europeans can get to know it and feel ownership of it. The INDIGO project has the potential of becoming a real web community for blind and partially sighted Europeans.

Nolan Quigley, December 2003

Search d	FINAL REPORTS FROM INDIGO LINKPEOPLE CYPRUS Pancyprian Organization of the Blind P.O. Box 23511 1684 Nicosia Cyprus Report on the participation of the Pancyprian Organization of the Blind as partner to the EBU INDIGO Project With reference to the participation of our Organization as partner to the European Year INDIGO website project of the European Blind Union, I would like to inform you as follows. Our Organization started with the dissemination of information about the website immediately after the launch of the project. There was a short announcement at the Annual General Assembly of the Organization held in Nicosia last June, in addition to references and discussions about the project at the ordinary meetings of the Youth Committee, the Women's Committee and the International Affairs Committee of our Organization. All our members and friends were also informed about the project through a circular letter, which was distributed by mail to more than 2000 people. In addition, our Organization included an article about the website and the project in our Newsletters. The Newsletter in the Greek language where the information was included, was send last July to all our Members and friends in Braille, cassette, large type and regular print. The English article was published in our international newsletter "The Cyprus Braille" (Issue no. 5 - August 2003), which was sent to more than a 100 Braille readers in fifty countries and more than a 1000 subscribers of the electronic form of our newsletter all over the world. This article also contained a list of the participating countries and the addresses and other details of the contact person of each country. We have also translated in to Greek the appropriate text, which was then incorporated into the microsite of the main INDIGO website. Furthermore, a link was created into the website of the Pancyprian Organization of the Blind “pot-cyprus.com”, to enable interested members to access the INDIGO project website from our website. In contrast to other projects and international activities of our Organization the involvement of our members in this project and the response to our efforts was not as expected. This is due to the fact that the number of blind internet users in Cyprus is relatively low. Our members are not used to projects, in which, as they suppose, they have to share personal experiences and information. Our Organization believes that the project contributed significantly in raising awareness of the European Year of People with disabilities. The European Year Indigo website project also achieved its main goal of promoting knowledge and experiences between blind people and their organizations and enhanced understanding and cooperation in Europe. Christakis Nicolaides Link Person EBU INDIGO Project Pancyprian Organization of the Blind CZECH REPUBLIC We think that we have fulfilled all criteria for the Indigo project in our country. We promoted the project several times via our mailing list, where is about 550 members - blind and partially sighted by whom we can expect they have access to internet. Unfortunately, our members are still not used to such ways of discussion - they prefer to discuss their problems over a glass of beer than to write them a discuss them this way. This was a very good experience for us, we will have to intensify our work in this field and try to learn our people not to be bashful and to have no fear to discuss their problems with people that they don't know. Please be so kind and let us know if this report is sufficient for you and if you need to add something. With best regards, Vaclav Polasek DENMARK Report from the Danish Association of the Blind In Denmark we have promoted the Indigo project by writing an article about the project in our magazine (RP-NYT). We have also promoted the project on our website: (www.dkblind.dk/Soegning/Links/Udenlandske_links/indigo.htm) We haven't really received any contributions made on our country’s micro site, but maybe that is because they have been made in English, and therefore didn't need to be translated. We hope that the project will continue - a European web forum is always needed. FINLAND European Blind Union (EBU) European Year website We translated all the material we received for the site. We promoted the site in our federation magazine and information was sent to our regional member organizations. We also told about the site in our news group for visually disabled people. Unfortunately the use of the site has been poor. We have received and translated only one message for the site. In our news group there was one message from a visually disabled person complaining about the fact that English was used on the site. That was partly true because there are still some texts on our micro site which have not been translated although we have sent the texts in Finnish. Best Regards Kaisu Miettinen and Timo Kuoppala ITALY 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 EBU Indigo - Project Review from the United Kingdom Link Person for the project in the UK: Nolan Quigley Assistant European Campaigns Officer Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) 105 Judd Street London WC1H 9 NE UK Tel. +44 (0) 20 7391 2087 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7388 2706 email Nolan.Quigley@rnib.org.uk 1 How was the Indigo project promoted in the UK? The INDIGO web site was promoted and publicised in the UK in various ways by RNIB. On RNIB’s web site we drafted a short summary of the project which also featured a link so that people interested could click straight on to the INDIGO site. We publicised and promoted the project internally within RNIB by email, through the intranet and through briefings. We also sent out information about the project to RNIB’s campaign supporters, a network of grass-roots campaigners and local activists. At the initial stage, RNIB’s web accessibility experts looked over the site and made several suggestions for improvement to the site. We forwarded these to the web master who made the necessary alterations very quickly and efficiently. 2 What were the results? Several comments were left on the site and on the UK microsite from people based in the UK. Issues raised included a need for information in accessible formats and problems that blind people can have access documents in pdf format. A respondent based in the UK communicated with a Finnish respondent on the issue of the employment of disabled people. 3 Further Comments or Feedback on the project This was first and foremost and ambitious project, highly experimental in nature. The site was set up and launched in a very short timeframe, 1 year into its life, in web forum terms it is still in its infancy. The site would definitely benefit from being continued and developed in future years so that it can become better known and that blind and partially sighted Europeans can get to know it and feel ownership of it. The INDIGO project has the potential of becoming a real web community for blind and partially sighted Europeans. Nolan Quigley, December 2003
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