Accessibility Seminars aim to provide comprehensive and understandable training for students, practitioners and anyone interested in creating more inclusive societies with people of different ages and abilities, such as people with disabilities, seniors, or children. Although it originated in the Architecture Degree and Master's, it has expanded through the years through different collaborations to address communication, videogames or even literature inclusive practices.
Cross-border/international
Spain
Other
Latin America and other Spanish speakers watching online from different countries in Europe (Italy, Portugal, etc)
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
As an individual
First name: Alba Last name: Ramírez Saiz Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Calle Selma Lagerloff, 15, 6º2 Town: Madrid Postal code: 28021 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 657 86 41 38 E-mail:alba.ramirez@alumnos.upm.es Website:http://www.linkedin.com/in/alba-ramirez-saiz
Accessibility Seminars are based on the concept of learning through experiencing and interacting with target groups. Each year, we have focused on different aspect of inclusive design:
2019: Accessibility beyond regulations (focused on addressing regulations gaps in terms of inclusive design). Included in the Master's in Architecture.
2020: Accessibility beyond the person (focusing on creating inclusive-for-all societies, without making differentiation). Included in the Series of Seminars of Rey Juan Carlos University.
2021: Accessibility beyond the sight (focusing on visual challenges that people may have in the city). Included in the Summer Courses of Rey Juan Carlos University.
2022: Accessibility beyond the senses (focusing on the challenges that people with deafblindness face in the city). Included in the Science and Innovation week 2022 of Comunidad de Madrid and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Every event gathers people from different backgrounds who can offer unique insights on the topics. We have already collaborated with engineers, writers, videogames designers, architects, urban planners, psychologists, IT technicians, public practitioners, rehabilitators, etc. Thus, we can grant that an unbiased view is provided to the attendants so they can understand the complexity of creating inclusive societies. Moreover, some of these professionals have different conditions, such as deafblindness, physical disability or hard of hearing, so everyone even target groups are involved by sharing their knowledge and experiences.
In other words, we try to train not only on the technical aspects of the design for all, but also grant that target groups have a voice in the process too. Our view is that people cannot act if they cannot connect with the people who need it the most, so these sessions boost their knowledge as well as their sensitivity.
Design for all
Inclusive design
Barrier-free cities
People with disability
Cities for all ages and abilities
This project is aligned with one of the three legs of sustainability: the social one. We want to achieve it by creating healthy-ageing environments where everyone is socially included throughout their lives. Our society is ageing, and the number of people with disabilities is alarmingly rising due to a longer lifespan and survival ratio from serious illnesses. Because of it, it is crucial to invest in inclusive societies to grant that everyone feels part of the community regardless of their age or ability.
In this context, Accessibility Seminars try to reach 2 main collectives: students and practitioners. As for the first ones, they are the people who will execute city plans and develop our future policies; thus, they will play a vital role in setting up inclusive societies in a near future. As for the second ones, although they have already completed their base training and are now active, there is always room for improvement - both professionally and personally -, so reaching them and providing them with new inclusive tools can help in advancing towards creating new societies for all.
So far, we have reached more than 400 people throughout the 4 editions, meaning that 400 people have received both technical and sensitive formation on the topic, and may have included some tips on their daily tasks (either student papers or working actions).
There are 3 main objectives regarding aesthetics and quality of experience for people in Accessibility Seminars:
1. Inclusive training. Since we are training on inclusive design, our training method should also be inclusive for everyone. We provide with captioned videos and sign-language interpretation in all our sessions so anyone can join. The content is also carefully supervised so as to grant that both the language and the visuals are accessible to everyone.
2. Cultural impact. Our main goal is to create inclusive societies, so obviously we aim to have a cultural impact on out attendants' lives. Bringing people together from very different fields, some of them with disabilities, make us reach this goal. People can interact, ask questions and listen to first-person experiences that are not available in the university handbooks or in the policy recommendations they work on. In other words, we offer them an exclusive, different perspective to take home besides the regular technical formation.
3. Positive tone. Normally, accessibility is addressed from the negative perspective ("this is not being done" or "this has been executed badly"). However, since the beginning we have attempted to provide positive examples to create a resource bank for people to have. Obviously, explaining why something is not helpful will be the first step towards change, but if we do not have a helpful example, we would never turn something unhelpful into helpful.
As this project is based on inclusivity, the objectives are clear:
1. Create inclusive societies. Understanding difficulties and how to solve them is key to achieving design for all. When people with disabilities talk about their personal experiences, the attendants tend to develop a critical, likewise sensitive, thinking towards inclusivity. They may not extract specific inclusivity measures from these interventions, but they develop a more insightful understanding of the importance of developing meaningful actions in their fields.
2. Create inclusive cities. However, we need to make sure that interacting amongst the collective is possible in the urban environments we live in. Otherwise, the inclusive society understood as an infinite web of interactions cannot be forged.
3. Create inclusive training. Normally, we unconsciously assume that these kinds of training are for "abled" people. However, there are many professionals and students that may present invisible disabilities or are just not willing to share them with the rest of the group. Thus, having inclusive material for everyone grants that this web of inclusive interactions starts from the very beginning of the project: from the moment we start preparing the formation and the content, to the moment the attendants receive it. This way, we make the content available and accessible for everyone, regardless of their age and ability.
Everybody can benefit from the Seminars.
First, the sessions have always been free for the attendees. Volunteers and promoters have made them possible. Parallelly, everyone has had access to the content by using the streaming format, so the location was not a conditioning for attending the Seminars. Also, all the content has been carefully studied to make it accessible for everyone, including captioning and sign-language interpretation. In other words, everyone can take advantage of all the resources we are making available regardless of the cost, location or even abilities.
Second, once they have attended, they gain valuable knowledge that they can put into practice in both their professional and personal life, thanks to the multidisciplinary formation we offer (communication, games, architecture, urbanism...). They may not have the possibility to implement the acquired knowledge on their day-to-day, but they will certainly have enough resources to handle traditionally uncomfortable situations, like, for instance using a crosswalk with somebody who has visual difficulties as they would have received communication training on it.
Third, if they happen to be able to apply the knowledge in their job, it will benefit everyone. By creating inclusive societies, nobody will be left out, and everyone will feel included. This means that regardless of our age, abilities, or even temporary conditions, we would be able to use our cities and develop our personal relationships thanks to that person that took the time and effort to implement inclusive actions.
Although it is not common to receive feedback as an organiser time after an event is held, one girl happened to let us know that she was going to write her bachelor's thesis on inclusive cities thanks to the Seminars. Even if it is not a big accomplishment, it meant that one more person is willing to change things thanks to Accessibility Seminars.
Throughout the years, we have reached different stakeholders and partners that have made it possible for us to carry out the Accessibility Seminars:
- Fundación ONCE: it is the best well-known association for people with disabilities in Spain. They have provided us with the promotion of the event and by supporting it by giving the opening lecture.
- ILUNION Hotels: it is a hotel brand focused on creating inclusive hotels for everyone. It has more than 25 hotels in Spain. They supported us by giving a lecture on inclusive building design and designing a workshop for free in exchange for advertising. A person with a visual disability was in charge of it, which allowed attendants to see that people with disability can also be successful, setting a reference.
- acfprint3D: as a 3D printing business, they printed some devices so as to teach attendants how to communicate through the touch with deafblind people. In exchange, they became partners and promoted their business along with the event.
- Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid: the Seminars have always been attached to a university to receive media support and the space to develop the activities. Both universities have allowed international sharing and institutional support.
- Individual business partnerships: most of the lecturers came from different associations and businesses, and offered their support by giving free lectures and organising workshops at no cost for Accessibility Seminars.
In conclusion, since funding is so scarce for this type of initiative, stakeholders have been key to its success. Either with products, lectures, workshops or promotions, every year we have partnered with at least 4 different stakeholders. Some of them have repeated year after year, which is also a sign of success.
Every Seminar approached different perspectives on different subjects. Although most of the content was focused on the built environment, we believed that it was vital to include different approaches to this matter. As so, varied professionals have gathered throughout the editions: IT technicians, architects, urban planners, writers, tourism experts, teachers, researchers, gamers... All of them provided a unique perspective on how everything that surrounds us can condition our free of movement and our independence.
All of them were consulted during the organization process so they could be part of the development of each session. Consequently, a bit of all the speakers is always present in each edition. In other words, for us, speakers are not something to fill the programme with, but somebody who can contribute to the entire dissemination process, from the conception of the content to the event itself. Moreover, this has been extremely valued by the attendants, as it provides more personality and differentiation from other similar events, which only focus on the content and not the form.
As has been highlighted in previous sections, the Accessibility Seminars offer a different perspective to traditional inclusiveness training for 3 main reasons:
1. People of different ages and abilities are included as part of the speakers. They are not only mentioned in the content, but they are granted space to share their experience so the attendants can get first-hand knowledge and connect theoretical concepts and people affected by it.
2. People of different ages and abilities can take part in our seminars. Normally, this kind of training is only thought for people without disabilities, neglecting the opportunity for all people to join. In fact, and paraphrasing the words of one speaker from the 1st edition, a person with a certain disability may know about his or her needs, but may not know anything about other person's or different collectives' needs. For this reason, we provide sufficient resources for everyone to join: live captions allow people to follow the discourse better and easier by reading it, sign language can help people with hearing difficulties, all the material is shared under request so attendants can review the content afterwards, and while signing up for the event, they are asked for any needed adaptations so they can fully join in.
3.
This initiative has been replicated for 4 editions. Each edition has allowed us to improve our methodology and implement new tools for everyone to enjoy it. Overall and so far, we have a number of indications that we always follow so as to create the best and the most complete event:
- Each edition is focused on a specific topic. General training courses are common and repetitive. By focusing on certain aspects, we can attract more people and offer more in-deep formation.
- Every edition needs to take speakers' opinions into consideration. To grant the highest quality, the best speakers are asked to join the event. Thus, they are the most knowledgeable in their field, and we believe it is essential that we ask them for their opinion and advice. They may recommend new speakers or workshops that we did not come up with before, and this increases the chances of the Seminars being a success.
- Every edition must be broadcasted, so people of different backgrounds and locations can join the training. Thus, people who find it difficult to leave their home, or those who have poor training in their hometown can access the content online.
- Speakers should present accessible content, both in presentations and in oral dissertations. Techniques on how to achieve it are provided from the beginning, and possible questions and assistance are granted via email. One of the organization team members, Alba Ramírez, has received full formation on it and can help other speakers in the process.
Our approach is very simple: to be as inclusive as possible in every aspect of the event, while providing specific training on inclusivity for everyone.
In order to achieve it, we always try to include people of different ages and abilities in the organization process, as well as in the different panels of speakers. A mixture of technical and awareness talks and workshops is key to drawing attention to the main issues of current society. Each edition also includes a workshop on communications techniques, which is highly useful so as to include everyone in our society, and learn more about their interaction needs.
In this regard, we also communicate with speakers and attendants to understand their needs and their opinions, so as to make it as close as possible. This way, people feel more engaged and included in the process, creating a sense of belonging which translates into more attendants and recognition. Also, this is due to our aim of learning something from every edition, so every year we improve the project.
It is evident that we want to address two of the main global challenges of today's society:
1. Inclusive scenarios for people of all ages and abilities. We try to find the vulnerable situations that current urban environments are creating, and find a solution. We take different approaches to this problem, so as to try and address it globally and not only from one single angle.
2. Access to quality knowledge for everyone. This training project is not only for those who live in big cities and can easily commute to prestigious institutions. Instead, we grant that everyone can get the formation we are offering by broadcasting all of our content. Even when we are having purely face-to-face workshops, they are broadcasted so people can learn about the exercises and try them at home.
Our main goal is to provoke a change in each attendant, so they can provoke a change in their surroundings. The content of each session is focused on how individuals can reimagine our society and act consequently. Thus, we boost local changes in multiple points of the world, so everyone can do their bit to solve these two big global challenges we are facing today.
So far, we have developed 4 editions, all in Spanish, with the following results:
- Attendants: 50 (1st edition), 215 (2nd edition), 83 (3rd edition), 137 (4th editions)
- Sponsors: 2 (1st edition), 2 (2nd edition), 3 (3rd edition), 3 (4th edition)
- Speakers with disabilities or other conditions: 3 out of 6 (1st edition), 3 out of 6 (2nd edition), 3 out of 6 (1st edition), 5 out of 6 (3rd edition), 2 out of 4 (4th edition)
- 1 book (1st edition)
This has helped us reach more people who can contribute to building more inclusive environments, direct or indirect. For instance, we have received students who were writing their bachelor's dissertations, and who were inspired to include the learnings from the event in their papers. Finally, we believe that technicians and practitioners who attend this event are more likely to put into real-world practice the tips and suggestions they get from Seminars. With all these, the possibilities of creating more sociably sustainable societies grow.
Actually, our project embraces all 4 lines of new competencies developing exposed by the European Competence Framework on Sustainability:
1. Embodying sustainability values. We support and promote sustainability from the inclusion perspective (social sustainability)
2. Embracing complexity in sustainability. We show different realities and the issues that they face on a daily basis. Our expert speakers offer solution to complex matters and create a welcoming atmosphere for the debate to flow.
3. Acting for sustainability. We act in favour of a socially sustainable future. By doing these events every year, we are contributing and inspiring people to take a step forward towards inclusive societies.
4. Envisioning sustainable futures. We explore future scenarios where everyone takes part in daily activities without feeling left out. We are an ageing society that needs to address the issue of high numbers of people with physical, sensory and cognitive obstacles.
