More than 200 people gathered at the first Open Space Forum dedicated to International Day of People with Disabilities

Today, on December 2, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine together with the Council of Europe for the have for the first time organized an Open Space Forum on the occasion of the International Day of People with Disabilities. The Forum brought together more than 200 participants, including people with disabilities, visual and hearing impairments, and two dozen speakers, among which international experts from the Council of Europe, representatives of concerned ministries, NGOs and scientific institutions.

The Forum aims to present the Government's plans to expand social services for people with disabilities in communities, initiatives to create equal competitive working conditions with the support of business associations, improve state building standards for planning the spatial development of villages and cities, taking into account the needs of people with disabilities and more. The event consists of 4 thematic panels, including: "Accessibility and social services", "Employment and social entrepreneurship", "Education, culture and sports", "Healthcare and rehabilitation".

“Since late August, we have been working on four main points to ensure that people with disabilities are full-fledged members of society. The first is negotiations with business associations to provide well-equipped workplaces and competitive wages, the second is to provide rehabilitation equipment to everyone who needs that, the third is to expand the list of social services and their accessibility within the community, and the fourth is to provide sufficient number of sign language interpreters, and much more that we are working on a daily basis to bring social services to a new level in 2020,” said Yulia Sokolovska, Minister of Social Policy.