National Accessibility Week

26.5.2025

From May 19 to 25, Ukraine is celebrating National Accessibility Week – a large-scale campaign aimed at raising awareness of the needs of people with disabilities and creating conditions for their full lives.

On May 20, the “Barrier-Free Hour” was held. During the event, college students got acquainted with the “Barrier-Free Handbook” – a useful resource that reveals the principles of equal opportunities for all (https://bf.in.ua/). This important event was also joined by the Brianka Professional College. 

They discussed:

– how to create an accessible space (physical, digital, social);
– basic rules for communicating with people with disabilities;
– examples of inclusive solutions in everyday life.

Students were asked to find barrier-free violations in photos from public places (park, cafe, transport). This made it possible to understand how little we notice the problems of others. Together, we found out that even ordinary stairs or an incorrectly parked bicycle near the ramp can create serious obstacles.

On May 23, a joint challenge with the Myrhorod Special School “An Hour Without Sound” was held. This event became the most emotional part of the week.

At the beginning of the event, the host announced that there are 430 million people with hearing impairments in the world, and invited college students to turn off the sound for an hour and put themselves in their place in order to better understand how people with hearing impairments perceive the world.

Students from the Myrhorod Special School, where the college is located, helped to fully experience the atmosphere of this event. They introduced themselves with gestures and briefly told about themselves. During the event, the students taught the students not only simple basic gestures, but also useful everyday phrases that help in communicating with people with hearing impairments:

Politeness: “Please”, “Excuse me”, “I don’t understand”;
Simple phrases: “How are you?”, “My name is…”, “Help, please”;
Emergency situations: “I feel bad / hurt”, “I need a doctor”;
Gesture phrases for learning, educational terms: “Lecture”, “Break”, “Do you have any questions?”.
There were also humorous gestures to relieve tension, simple and funny phrases: “I’m hungry”, “That’s cool!”, “I’m tired”.
To consolidate, so that the students would remember the gestures better, the students of the special school held a gesture quiz and offered to complete the task “Wordless Coffee” – they had to order a drink in a coffee shop.

After the challenge, there was a discussion of the event with the students. And it was nice to hear that many were “touched” by this event: “It was informative!”, “The hardest thing was to understand how to convey emotions without a voice”, “It was scary to feel what it was like to not be able to just say “Help””.

Such a challenge is the first step towards an inclusive worldview. It helped to break down barriers and show that communication is possible in any form!

A barrier-free world begins with awareness. And we are already on this path!

Brianka Professional College