Tim za socijalno uključivanje i smanjenje siromaštva

Author: Iva Eraković (Social Inclusion Blog)

If you have ever sprained your ankle, broken your leg or arm or had your eyes dilated – you know how inaccessible a place the world can be. Raised kerbs, lifts, counter shields, stairways, blurred perspective… Anything can turn into a challenge that requires huge effort, or simply becomes an unsurmountable barrier. While these difficulties in everyday functioning are only temporary for the majority of people, for some they are life-long experience, present in every day of their existence.

One in four people in Serbia face the problem of inaccessibility, which prevents them from fully exercising some of their human rights and freedoms, such the freedom of movement. Accessibility is a general concept used to describe the degree to which a building, product or service can be accessed by most people. In the first place, it denotes the physical accessibility of buildings and means of transportation, which implies the existence of wheelchair ramps, disability-friendly lifts and the like. Information accessibility refers to the accessibility of contents in the language understandable to a person, or in a form that enables persons with developmental disabilities to participate and understand the contents. Accordingly, the term e-accessibility refers to website and software design that enables various users to satisfy their needs, e.g. by ensuring that a web page can be used by persons with impaired vision, hearing, motor and/or cognitive difficulties.

Accessibility is a term that is most commonly used in the narrative about persons with disabilities and their right of access to services and products. However, this issue is wrongly perceived as a problem that does not affect all of us. Namely, the general public seems to forget that accessibility should be connected with the universal principle that a product or service should be accessible to all of us – irrespective of whether we have some form of disability or not. This is because accessibility is a human right of all individuals, of and in all ages.

To acquaint the reader with the issue of accessibility as a general necessity and phenomenon, I will refer to my personal experience. And I will go no further than the basic need of all people – the movement. Namely, I am a mother of three daughters, where two of them are twins. It seemed a good idea to purchase of a double stroller in which the babies sit side by side. As parents, we reckoned that it would allow the twins to see each other, play and communicate, while the slightly older, two-year old daughter would be able to hold the grip handle at the side and participate. However, back in 2000, the reality showed us that architectural solutions, as well as all other infrastructure in Serbia, were not designed to accommodate mothers “parading” this type of strollers, the babies in them and an extra child alongside. To say the least.

How did it actually work in practice?

The stroller was carried out of our apartment building folded, since any other way was impossible, and only then could its passengers take their seats and buckle up. The challenge of kerbs was not that difficult to handle; however, the street stairs, many of which did not feature any kind of ramp, could only be crossed with the help of friendly random passers-by. Even when the stairs happened to include some kind of a slide, which was quite uncommon in 2000, the slide was rarely wider than 1 m – certainly not wide enough for a double stroller. As a result, I often had to tug the stroller with my babies inside up or down flights of “only” five, six, or a dozen steps, while constantly being on guard, wary that I or my older daughter could trip, or even worse, that the stroller could topple over and cause even more trouble.

Even the pavement was not always accessible. Illegally parked cars blocked our way on the pavements and, every so often, I had to take the stroller with the twins, my older daughter and myself down on the roadway to get past them, risking being hit. Seen from a bird’s-eye view, that looked like zigzagging that was made additionally challenging by uneven pavements, raised or low manhole covers and potholes.

When the pavements and stairways were finally overcome, a new challenge emerged: passing through the front doors of shops, post offices, banks, health centres… Our appearance was quite an attraction every day at the supermarket. Whenever we showed up, someone would rush to us, usually unlocking the locked half of the double door and helping us to carry the stroller over the turnstile. I would normally push the stroller on a slalom ride between the shelves, careful not to knock things over, constantly apologizing to the customers coming our way and taking good care that the girls don’t pull the entire shelf and all the products down as we narrowly pass them. And so we would reach the cash counter. Now, passing between the cash counters was a next-level manoeuvre. It required lifting the stroller again, biceps, triceps, excuse-me’s, sorrys, could you pleases…

The same movement pattern was used between the green market stalls, where people often gave us frowning looks or irritated comments: “Why would you ever bring them here!”. There were days when I felt deep frustration and the urge to explain to them that not everyone had an alternative. But, even if we did? Shouldn’t walking your babies in a stroller freely be taken for granted? At that moment, I became deeply aware of the fact that, for various reasons, some people lived without an alternative all their lives.

The kindergarten was relatively close to where we lived, yet the stroller could not fit through the front door, either. In order to take my older daughter to or from the kindergarten, I had to leave the stroller in front, put one baby in the kangaroo baby carrier on my shoulders and carry the other baby in my arms – every day until they could walk by themselves.

The access to the primary health centre was made of a long flight of stairs, without any ramp whatsoever. Luckily, the pediatric clinic was on the ground floor. However, problems would arise as soon as we had to use the laboratory, since it was located upstairs, and the lift was so small that the stroller could not fit inside. At that point we realised that we had to split up: daddy carried the twins, while mummy carried the older child and, of course, the stroller. No need to emphasize that all of the staff got to know us over time and looked at our struggle with sympathy; however, the babies grew and the manoeuvre itself became more and more difficult, both literally and figuratively.

I could go on talking about the double stroller in public transportation, in lifts, playrooms…But this is just a story of two years of changing needs and perceptions, in which the stroller was merely a symbol of inequality. That same inequality that persons with disabilities live every minute of their lives, if they ever dare to leave their homes on their own in the first place.

Is the situation for them any better than in 2000, and to what degree? I am not so sure.

Enhanced accessibility in the times of the pandemic

Persons with disabilities, gathered around various associations and organisations worldwide, have been trying for decades to improve their position and, among other things, enable their full social accessibility. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that all those things that were considered impossible, impracticable and unsustainable before, suddenly became feasible and accessible. The business world, including the big conferences and high-level meetings, has been moved to the virtual environment. Distance learning was enabled. An entire online cultural space has been created. Telemedicine has developed and the unthinkable has become a daily routine.

The times of the global crisis have, in a way, demonstrated that there are multiple possibilities. It would be wise to keep all the people who have now felt included for the first time in certain activities in focus at the end of the pandemic, as well. The lesson is, actually, very simple: our world can be exceptionally accessible. For each of us.

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This article was written to commemorate the National Day of Giving, which is a part of the Framework For Giving project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by the Coalition for Giving. The Coalition for Giving is led by the “Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation”, while the other Coalition members are the Trag Foundation, Catalyst Balkans, SMART Kolektiv, the Serbian Philanthropy Forum, the Responsible Business Forum and the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The article was created at the initiative of and with the support from the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, as part of the “Support to Improve Social Inclusion in the Republic of Serbia” project, supported by the Government of Switzerland.

The article includes the author’s opinions and attitudes, which do not necessarily reflect the views of the aforesaid organisations and institutions.

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Iva Eraković

My name is Iva Eraković, I was born in Belgrade in 1973. I have graduated journalism and communicology at the Faculty of Political Sciences. I have spent a significant part of my professional life working in media outlets, as a journalist and editor. Since 2011, I have been the Executive Director of the Friends of Children of Serbia. I believe in social change through personal engagement in boundary pushing, movement and sharing, and I consider the investment in children and youth to be the essence of an equitable society. I enjoy writing and music. I am a mother of three daughters – Srna, Mila and Lana.

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Source: Social Inclusion Blog

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