Building a more accessible future with the Asociación Valenciana de Ayuda a la Parálisis Cerebral (Valencian Association for the Support of Cerebral Palsy)

The Asociación Valenciana de Ayuda a la Parálisis Cerebral (AVAPACE) (Valencian Association for the Support of Cerebral Palsy) and inSuit have launched a number of collaborative projects. First, and thanks to a collaborative agreement recently signed between the organisations, both are planning to actively promote the issue of web accessibility worldwide, promoting the use of tools that will guarantee access to web content and services for people living with disability of any kind as well as the elderly.

AVAPACE is a not-for-profit organisation which has been designated of an Organisation of Common Public Interest made up of people with cerebral palsy along with their parents, siblings and family, professionals from the field as well as volunteers. Its members also include others suffering from other types of encephalopathies requiring related treatments. The association was founded in 1972 to palliate the shortage in resources available to sufferers and since then has worked to improve the quality of life of people living with cerebral palsy and to fight for their fundamental rights.

Within the framework of this collaborative agreement, AVAPACE is planning to incorporate inSuit into its new web page and promote the adoption of this tool as a fundamental support for people with physical and intellectual disabilities, in turn enabling their access to the Internet.

For instance,inSuit is the technological supplier of the e-training platform for the AVAPACE-led European project:“Cerebral Palsy – Early Intervention”. On the 8^th and 9^th of November, the kick-off meeting was held at the offices of AVAPACE, as project coordinator. This meeting saw the participation of all partner countries, noteworthy among them was HURT (Croatian Association of Occupational Therapists), APCB (Braga Cerebral Palsy Association, Portugal), IL-CERCHIO (Social Cooperative of Italy), inSuit, EURLYAID (European Association on Early Childhood Intervention, with headquarters in Luxembourg) and AVAPACE as project manager and coordinator. The participation of inSuit in this project will allow us to receive feedback that will help to improve the product in line with the needs of people with cerebral palsy, including those with physical and intellectual disabilities.