a lot of energy good network amazing unforgettable encouraging

Hi I am Olga My name is Dario

And I am from Berlin I am Italian I was born in Padova, near Venice

So Dario came up with the idea of Noisyvision and to do something beyond Noisyvision to connect people more to Noisyvision

I am one of the organizer of the workshop

together with my friend and colleague Olga I am visually impaired and hearing impaired

I have Usher Syndrome

I saw this program of the European Union which is called Grundtvig Program, a program of the Lifelong Learning to try to find a partner

organization which was ProRetina, which is a self help organization of people with Retinitis Pigmentosa

My role in this week is part of the organization

and the decision of what we were going to do and the generation of the idea behind and

why we wanted to do this workshop and what we wanted to do

We were reaching out different self help organizations and different NGO in all European Countries

to find the participants The selection process was extremely difficult

because of all the people that wanted to participate and we also wanted to give the chance to participate

Another role during the week is that I am trying to get people involved and offer my support

as a visually impaired myself

We developed the program together and it took one and half year to come up with a good structure actually it was a pretty long road to go

We have four trainers and some other volunteers

My name is Karina Chupina I originally come from Saint Petersburg, in Russia

In my training work I am a specialist focused on exploring and developing the accessible

and inclusive approaches with young people from minorities, including young people with

different types of disabilities This is what I like to do

I am also here to help with the educational methods that help all participants to work

together, to have a good teamwork for the entire week, to learn from each other,

to share the experiences This is the first time that I work with an

entire group of partially sighted young people

So, we have 16 people from over 8 countries From Romania, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Great Britain, Germany, ...

They all are partially sighted, for different reasons

and for different length of time Somebody since two years, somebody since birth

And they are all very motivated which is something we found out already in the process of communicating

with them A pretty energetic group

We all come from different countries, different educational backgrounds, different cultures,

different levels of disabilities as well, and since we are so different there is so much to learn from each other

I was already very happy from the very beginning

and I have seen that people are really motivated I have seen that so far everything went very well

The responses are extremely well until now

It seems like people cherish and like the opportunity to be here, meet other people

from other countries and exchange and share the experiences

I think the feedback so far was really nice

Create some new ways, some different ways, of informing and involving, even people that are not partially sighted

Of course we hope that it will be participants that will help us to disseminate this wider

and that they will never give up

I discovered my condition two years ago and it was really hard, but I really feel good

when the eye doctor said "you have retinitis pigmentosa" because I think immediately

Oohhh I am not crazy, I have something!!!

I discovered it three years ago and so I am not used to be a visually impaired person

This happened to me two years ago and I had to change my life in an instant like that

I have only been partially sighted for like four years And this is the first time I travelled on

my own to another country

I had really high expectations First when I saw the advertisement of this

workshop I was really happy and I knew that I will apply and that it would be a great

thing for me so when I got selected I was really happy and I was partying in my flat alone

I didn't know ... at the beginning I thought

it is not a big deal, but actually it has been really great meeting people in similarsituations

To see the opportunity that other people are

dealing with this and what other people can do it kind of inspires me

You learn from their experiences. They may have come across the same problems as I have

but since they come from different backgrounds they are able to see it in a different way

and maybe have tackled it successfully in a way they seem fit and if i can go and talk

to them, get ideas from them how to tackle certain problems because of their different

perspectives, it leads to different solutions which is amazing

To share the information of course and to learn and meet other people from differentcountries

To get a better network

Getting people together, who have disabilities, trying to find a way on how to get along with

this, make a community which could improve the living quality of people like us

And then its just to have fun and meet good people, like minded people, and maybe have

some blind guides when I go to their cities. Which is always a good thing

It is just an experiment for now but, who knows, maybe it will grow bigger

The main thing is to enjoy, have fun and also have a bit of hope

So I would like that me and the rest of the team at the end of this workshop will have

a true experience to share back in their home countries and with their own friends and people

Sometimes the main restrictions they are still behind your mind or sometimes is the attitude

of the other people and you need to have responsibility, you need to have good skills, and your own

motivation and confidence to overcome those, maybe, stereotypical attitudes from the other people, or prejudices, from the other people

We are now trying to put together our minds

and experiences in order to improve the idea that we don't need to see necessarily with

the eyes, but more with the mind and the hearth Which is also the bottom line and the mission of Noisyvision

Any workshop with and for young people with

disabilities is about looking more at the ability rather than at your disability

To investigate some new possibilities of dealing with low vision and raising awareness

Especially in the last days I realized that the main thing is to enjoy and have a space

and an opportunity to put together people to share information and possibilities for

actually a better life

Thank you You welcome

We joint this place, we are now in Kreuzberg Berlin is a fantastic city

Yesterday it was the best day, I really liked walking around

It is the first time I didn't get lost even though we all have visual impairment

We all had to look at the map and it helped me to try more because I wasn't embarrassed

about holding the map right up to my face or taking a long time because people were

very good at waiting and being patient which was great, really great

We were getting confidence by exploring the city on our won, we were given the chance

to choose our own path instead of being told you go to this street and there

We were just told go from point A to point B however you want

... and not rush, just take our time and we got to really enjoy Berlin, only seeing

tiny bit of it but it just made me angry to come back for more

14:52 VIP CITY According to the exploration that we had,

the exploration of Berlin, this week, there were a lot of interesting conclusions about

what can be actually improved in terms of accessibility

We were able to go around and learn more and then we had discussions about how the system works in other countries

We were discussing about the services for

visually impaired people in our home countries Also we had a visitor from Germany who was telling about the system here

To compare the different realities in different countries

To share good examples of accessibility and inclusion

To share not so good examples of accessibility

And to draw conclusions which then can be used for the creation of the model of

ideal accessible city, but still realistic, suggestions, on how the things can be improved

We were given the chance to speak our minds and be creative and think about how we can

improve that city how we can change the system

what we can do to improve it

share experiences and all. It is a great moment. And a lot of the time you will find you have

similar experiences Like today Patrick was talking about the ballards

and one of the other groups was talking about the glass doors. Every blind person knows

what it is like to walk through a glass door. It just goes with the territory, glass door don't see.

BANG!

No more glass door! No more glass door!

The city is not easy for me Because I need to take care

Every day it is hard for me to go to the job and fall down because there is something in

the middle of the street

We can learn so much from each other Everyone had great ideas and we all found

a way to make it come together in a sense that

We found compromise in a way that people without disability can live and people with disability can live, comfortably

Yesterday we had a brainstorm session to create

crazy ideas, so fantasy ideas

To dream about a more Visually Impaired Friendly City

So guys, how is it going We had great great great idea

We want to drive We want to drive a car

It is a good example of crossing the qualities because we are solving with the sound the

problem of the contrast and of the shape, so really good

Let's have fun guys It is time to have fun really

Sit down and dream of something ...funny

Forget about everyone, it is your city This is good black and white because for eighty

per cent of people that combination of contrast is good

If the screen is bad for you, forget the screen Because it is your city

Imagine a city like this Why it has to be grey?

Look...it is fun!

You don't have to think about all of the conditions and disability, we cannot, we want to make

a city that is yours It is not a city for everybody which is partially

sighted, it is a city where you feel good Finally we feel good

When you go to the toilet you can choose yourlight

Bravo, wow, this is amazing Also because,great ... ahahah, ... I love it

It is time from brainstorming, and get ideas, ...so...enjoy, cool!

The wall is all about public facilities inside buildings. One of our favourites here is this

Visually Impaired People have access to the front at concerts

This is us and this is everybody else This is our city our way

My city my way The yellow bins and no glass doors

Cars can drive themselves so we can go wherever we want when we want

Logical Building layouts When you come into a building you know where

the lift the stairs everything is going to be in the building

Outside can be all different and beautiful but inside all the same so you know from post

office to government building its all the same

where else Dario's sun glasses

Oh of course the best one Discount for Visually Impaired People's on all alcohol

Price scanners. When you go to a shop and the price is away

down there, you can't see it. so you have a scanner, you just go Beep... Ah 2.99.. two dear

Whats next

Ah Braille tells location when you are in a building, yeah gridlines on the floor when

you come to a corner, just here braille sign and large letters. also at an office

Just here braille here so you can read name of office also large letters

Cool, Bye!

They are really into the topic and also they are really willing to get the tools and

the information and the possibilities that we have, that we are providing to really get

involved into the process of creating the model of the visually impaired friendly city

which is the aim of the workshop

We really wanted to go a bit deeper into measuring or rather feeling accessibility trough the senses

which is very important for partially sighted people

Today we started to build from different materials, not only paper and pens but we had little pieces of wood or paperboard, metal strings

or whatever We started to build the model

visually impaired friendly city And this is something that should be disseminated

We had the imagination to think in a more artist sense but then on the last day we were

given the chance to really think If we change the colors of the benches to

orange, for example, you can see them better, especially for people who have problem with contrast,

but then it will also make you think how it could be artistically for other people

To see the other teams proposed was very funny because they were creative and they were

also ironic and self ironic

We concrete some ideas, the more important ideas to present to the politicians people to really make this into reality

We really had to think critically about whether it was a good investment or not, if it is

a possible investment Or if it is just an idea that can be proposed

And with all those ideas we had to ... our ideas are going to be pitch to some people

in the government, and they are going to think about it

We are going to prepare an awareness raising product

That could be a multimedia, or a video presentation, or an exposition about the

across various organizations working on cities accessibility in different countries of Europe

(only music)

The expectation is to really be able to create a network, to start creating a network of

people that are really willing to spread the information and the knowledge