EOS Romania Foundation has partnered with the Association for the Integration of Persons with Deficiencies and The Romanian Association of Blind Persons to solve a basic human right: that of equal access to information for all citizens, but with focus on the information and access needs of people with visual impairment in Romania. The objective is to make public websites accessible to people with vision problems, including the elderly. The initiative is financially supported through the EEA Grants - the NGO Fund.

This initiative has been kicked-off during the Get Online Week 2015 campaign to attract attention of the general public to the issue of vulnerable groups who are harder to reach and which deserve our extra effort in bringing them online. Over the next few weeks the partners will build an accessibility portal which will gather legislation, resources and materials about web accessibility services and will  solve an omnipresent problem – that of the lack of well-structured accessibility resources available in Romanian language.

Aurel Pătru, an e-accessibility expert with visual impairment welcomed the opportunity to campaign for e-inclusion during Get Online Week and reach through this national wide campaign hundreds of telecenters, schools and libraries who could start offering support and including the blind in their digital literacy projects: ´We are joining the Get Online Week campaign for the first time this year – and we feel very at home and welcome in this digital inclusion event – it is a huge opportunity to make our voices heard and take another step towards the inclusion of blind people’.

Over 30 people will participate this week in e-inclusion activities, some of them learning to browse the web for the very first time.