Ensuring Accessible and Inclusive Services for People with Disabilities with all Service Providers (Municipalities, Companies, Organizations, Schools, Banks and more)
Description
The practice developed by Access Israel (AI) gives service providers of all kinds such as organizations, banks, hospitals, schools etc. the knowledge and the practical tools they need to provide accessible and inclusive services for people with disabilities (PWD) and create an environment that is accessible and inclusive for all. The goal is to reduce inequality and improve the inclusion and accessibility for PWD in everyday life, in all areas of life by ensuring accessible and inclusive services. It gives service providers knowledge, practical tools, personal meetings with people with disabilities and experiential activities that simulate living with a disability.
Access Israel developed the practice of "Ensuring Accessible and Inclusive Services for People with Disabilities with all Service Providers" in order to reduce inequality and create a world that is accessible and inclusive for everyone. In order for PWD to live with dignity, respect and maximum independence, our society needs to enable PWD to receive accessible and inclusive services. When PWD need to seek basic services such as visiting a hospital or opening a bank account, they often face obstacles and challenges to do so as these organizations are not adjusted to their needs, which prevents them from living independently. Often, these service providers lack the awareness, knowledge and tools to give accessible and inclusive services for all. Therefore, AI created a practice that gives service providers the knowledge and the tools to give accessible and inclusive services and create an environment that is accessible and inclusive for everyone. <br />
This practice is a direct response to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as is works toward reducing inequalities for people with disabilities and the elderly. Amongst others, the practice responds to SDG 3 by enabling PWD to receive the proper services they need in hospitals and medical clinics. PWD and the elderly face often challenges and obstacles to receive the proper medical treatment due to the lack of accessible services in hospitals and medical clinics. This practice gives these service providers the knowledge and tools to give accessible and inclusive services. <br />
Moreover, this practice works to implement SDG 4, ensuring inclusive education, as it is applied in schools and universities to ensure that students with disabilities receive accessible and inclusive lessons and can learn in an environment that is accessible for them. As a natural consequence, it also responds to SDG 8, promoting employment of PWD by ensuring that they have access to education. The practices' goal is to create inclusive and accessible environment in educational institutions and prepares various organization creating accessible and inclusive environments for employees with disabilities.<br />
Furthermore, this practice aims to create a "Human Ramp" by developing a trend for accessibility and inclusion. This practice based on the belief that in order to create an inclusive and accessible world, the knowledge and tools on how to be accessible and inclusive needs to be passed on to all citizens. This gives people, organizations and institutions the opportunity and the tools to be part of the accessibility evolution. The practice "Ensuring Accessible and Inclusive Services" passes on the knowledge and tools needed to create accessibility and inclusion, therefore, creating a "human ramp". <br />
The main challenge of this practice was the initial unwillingness of the relevant bodies to participate in these trainings. To overcome these challenges, AI had to convince these stakeholders of the benefit of being accessible and inclusive for everyone, emphasizing that an "accessible business is a profitable and successful business" as it enables everyone to be a client. In addition, AI focused on creating a variety of innovative customized formats for these training to fit all.
To conduct the practice of "Ensuring Accessible and Inclusive Services", AI works with all types of service providers. Access Israel provides different types of trainings, such as workshops, day long training days, courses, Accessibility experiential trails, experiential dinners and consultation to implement the practice. Each of these training forms include the following four pillars: knowledge, practical tools, meeting PWD and experiential activities. The combination of these four pillars enables the participants to grasp the importance of accessibility and inclusion. Access Israel customizes the accessible service training according to the needs and characteristics of the service provider. For instance, the accessible service training for banks will focus on learning how to give accessible services to PWD that enter a bank and need to open a bank account. Moreover, when the practice is implemented in municipalities, it is customized to the specific services that a municipality provides. In the schools, the training consists of a training for the teachers and the staff on providing accessible and inclusive lessons for students with all kinds of disabilities. In addition to the training for the educational staff, AI conducts a daylong workshop and awareness raising event for the students. During this day and event, the student learn about different disabilities, the concept of being different and basic accessibility terms. Then, the students and the teachers meet PWD personally, hear their life stories, struggles and success. Lastly, the students and teachers take part in a big experiential event that simulate the loss of the senses.
Access Israel developed a number of experiential activities that simulate the loss of the senses in order for the participants to feel how it is to live with a disability. One of the activities is the "Accessibility Trail", a path with urban obstacles scattered on it and the participants chose through which disability they want to experience the trail (blindfolded, in a wheelchair or with noise canceling headphones). It gives the participants an understanding of the challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis. Especially in the trainings with the municipalities, it is a great way to show the employees of municipalities the importance of an accessible urban environment.
An additional experiential activity that Access Israel developed is the "Feast of the Senses", which is a three course meal that simulates the loss of a sense in each course, while the participants get to know a person with the discussed disabilities. During the meal they experience the feeling of being blind, deaf and with a physical disability. The experiential activities are a vital element of the trainings and demonstrates the participants the importance of an accessible and inclusive environment.
Further, In every training the service providers meet people with disabilities personally, to learn about the impact that (in)accessible services can have on a person with disabilities. At the end of each training, the service providers receive guidelines and checklist that help them to implement accessible and inclusive services, according to what they learned in the course.
These guidelines and checklists are customized to the services and needs of the place. For instance, in schools, Access Israel gives the teachers and the staff check lists and guidelines with information and tools on ensuring accessible and inclusive lessons and learning environment. The qualitative results of the practice in schools are the change of perception of the teachers and the other students. The training in the schools impacts the approach towards PWD, the inclusion of students with disabilities in the lessons and in the social life. Further, the increasing number of schools that take part in these activities and the partnerships with schools that include these activities in their yearly plan is an additional quantitative result which proves the success of the practice.
Further, an important, if not the most important, result is the trend that results from this practice. The more people and organizations are aware of the importance of providing accessible and inclusive services, the more people are engaged in the process and take part in creating accessibility and inclusion. Moreover, the most important result of the practice is the number of service providers that give accessible and inclusive services. This is the most important result as it directly impacts people with disabilities and improves their lives.
An additional and important output of this practice is the international cooperation with governments, municipalities, organizations, NGO's and educational facilities. Access Israel has begun sharing this practice internationally (at Zero Project Conference at UN Building in Vienna, Brazil, Ecuador, USA, Latvia and more) as it shows a very high success rate. This has not only increased the global sharing of knowledge but has also led to the introduction of this practice in other countries.
The practice was conducted nation-wide and resulted in a national trend of implementing accessible and inclusive services. Moreover, the practice mobilized the civil society to be part of the revolution of accessibility and inclusiveness. The practice's result was that it passed on the knowledge and activated the power of the civil society.
An important element of this practice is that Access Israel tackles this issue of accessible services in all spheres of life from many different sides and aspects. On the one hand, the practice works top down by working with government institutions, municipalities, the ministry of foreign affairs and other official institutions. On the other hand, the practice ensures accessibility and inclusion by working with unofficial institutions such as schools, different companies, organizations, and people directly, meaning bottom up in order to create a social change. Access Israel strongly believes that by creating a social change and trend for accessibility and inclusion, a human ramp is created that works like the snowball effect. Once people are aware of the importance of ensuring accessibility and inclusion for everyone and they have the tools to do so, they are able to be part of the implementation process of the SDG's. This creates a much wider ranging effect than a punctual project.
Another enabling factor is that in Israel, every employee that provides a service needs to take part once in his lifetime in an experiential activity and needs to take an annual training on giving accessible and inclusive services. Access Israel provides the "Accessibility Trail" and the "Feast of the Senses" as options to fulfill the duty of participating in experiential activities. Moreover, Access Israel provides the courses that teach giving accessible services that are mandated by the law.
The projects to "Ensure Accessible and Inclusive Services" can be customized for every service providers and can therefore adapt to any country and culture. These four pillars of the practice can be applied to any service provider, organization, municipality, school, university and more. The training can be customized according to the needs and characteristics of the relevant service providers. Access Israel has applied this practice in municipalities, banks, insurance companies, major companies, schools, universities and much more.
The four pillars are the important basis for the success of the practice. The tools needed to replicate the practice is the knowledge to train service providers about accessible services. Once the knowledge is acquired it can be adapted to any kind of service provider. The concept of the experiential activities and the personal meetings with people with disabilities can be easily learned and applied.
The practice is cost effective as it can be done on a small or large scale depending on the financial capabilities of the service providers. If needed, the project can be done for very little money and with the help of volunteers. The idea of this practice is that one can "copy paste" it to any service provider and any country. The practice is sustainable as it gives the service providers the tools to give accessible services.
It is important to add that the project includes local people with disabilities trained to be instructors bringing the local angle that can be adapted anywhere in addition to creating jobs for those people with disabilities.
In order to conduct this project it is important to create strategic relationships with service providers. The relationship between Access Israel and governmental agencies such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Welfare, the Foreign Ministry and the municipalities were crucial for the success of the practice. It is recommended that in order to succeed with the implementation of the practice, to work closely with governmental agencies. Moreover, the international relationships are very helpful for the success of the practice. The global sharing of knowledge is important as one can learn from other examples and practices done in other countries.
Access Israel has been running these programs for accessible training and implementation of accessibility in large organization for more than a decade. Our model has proven itself to be successful directly improving the quality of services that people with disabilities received as a result of these trainings. Moreover, once we started presenting this initiative internationally to countries where there is no legal requirement to do the training and saw the reaction and the understanding that this is the best methodology to make sure accessibility and inclusion are implemented. We understood the importance of simplifying and sharing so we can duplicate this model internationally. Since Access Israel began these programs prior to the requirement of the Israeli law of annual accessibility law for service providers. Our trainings were developed in a way that is appealing, attractive and trendy resulting in increasing demand and willingness to include these trainings by companies and organizations. We believe that this practice is an important and successful practice to ensure "accessible and Inclusive Services for People with Disabilities". The four pillars that are the basis for the practice are the key elements to make this practice successful. It raises awareness for this cause, gives the service providers the tools needed to provide accessible service and by introducing the service providers to people with disabilities and let them experience the challenges they face, creates a full package of effective training. This practice reduces the inequality towards people with disabilities and promotes the implementation of the SDGs. The beauty of this practice is that it creates a trend for accessibility and inclusion which creates the "human ramp" that enables everyone to be part of the accessibility revolution. Further, we believe that this practice is so valuable because is it can be replicated all over the world and in every service provider. The training, based on the four pillars, can be replicated with relatively small budgets but with great long lasting effects. Therefore, the practice developed by Access Israel is sustainable and cost efficient. Access Israel promotes this practice all over the world and shares the knowledge and tools needed to implement this practice.
A few examples of activities that Access Israel conducted all over the world
Latvia: Access Israel was in Latvia to exchange knowledge and to present our best practices to representatives from the Latvian government. Here is a video of the news coverage of our visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGUCUiNQMS4
Brazil: In 2016 Access Israel was invited by the Israeli Embassy in Brazil to promote accessibility and inclusion, and present Israel's work in this field. Here is an article about the visit: https://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=2285&ArticleID=54812&SearchParam=BR…
Ecuador: Access Israel participated at the UN Habitat III Convention and presented the "Accessibility Trail" at the event and invited the participants to take part in it. Here is an article about the visit: https://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=2285&ArticleID=54827
New York, USA: Access Israel organized a Feast for the Senses at the UN. Here is an article (in Hebrew) about the event: https://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=3288&ArticleID=51649&SearchParam=%D…
Vienna, Austria: Access Israel organized the Accessibility Trail as well as a Feast of the Senses at the UN headquarters' in Vienna. For more information, please red this article: https://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=2285&ArticleID=52167&SearchParam=VI…
Feast of the Senses: Access Israel organizes experiential dinners that simulate the loss of different disabilities. This dinner can be organized at any location and for any number of participants. Here is a video about the Feast of the Senses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXOv0TzeS1A
Special Advisor status at the UN: Access Israel received the status of Special Advisor by the UN's Economic and Social Committee. Here is an article about Access Israel receiving this status: https://www.aisrael.org/?CategoryID=3254&ArticleID=53373&SearchParam=Ha…
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Sharon Kessler, Resource development and external relations