Celebration of 10 years of Disway and conference on "Travelling without barriers" in Lipo.ink in Liberec

We are very happy that we managed to organize a great event in the premises of the Lipo.ink Innovation Centre. Thanks to Václav Uher for a great and brisk moderation of the conference.

As Květa Vinklátová, Deputy Governor and Councillor for Culture, Heritage Care and Tourism of the Liberec Region, noted in her introduction, it is great that for the first time people who can share their experiences with barrier-free travel and give examples from practice in the Czech Republic and abroad have gathered under one roof. On the other hand, it was possible to bring the issue of the disabled closer to those who do not yet know how to "walk".

Jana Panáčková, the chairwoman of the Disway association, recalled the 10th anniversary of the Disway association with the memory of its founder, wheelchair user Jirka Maule.

We have moved from the past to the present, where one of our core activities is mapping accessible routes on the Disway Trails mobile app. We have already visited several regions in the Czech Republic and thanks to German partners and cross-border cooperation we have several trails in Germany as well. The conference took place in the Liberec Region. That's why Aleš Černohous and Milan Novotný talked about what it was like to map, for example, the Babylon in Liberec or iQLANDIA.

Awareness of disability issues and the importance of accessibility should be part of the curriculum at school. How is this done at the Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the Technical University of Liberec? The education of architecture students and putting theoretical proposals into practice was engagingly discussed by Ing. Jana Košt'álová.

Tom Hluštík, as a developer, introduced the Disway Trails mobile application and its environment. And now... tramtadadaa!!! New is an updated list of places where you can use the EuroKey. And not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Germany.

Perfectly accessible for people with disabilities is the Sächsische Bildungs-und Begegnungsstätte Windmühle Seifhennersdorf e.V. How? Mr. Markus Kranich described it. Their centre can accommodate whole groups of disabled people because they have 10 accessible rooms. Various events and conferences can therefore be held here.

Back to the Liberec Region... Mgr. Kateřina Novotná from the Prague organization of wheelchair users explained how they mapped several buildings in the Liberec Region and what they did to ensure barrier-free accessibility.

After the break, Petr Hazuza from Konta Bariéry and representative of the Maps without Barriers project described what a data warehouse means. Interested organisations such as Konto Bariéry, Disway, Pestrá, CZEPA and POV agreed to cooperate with each other.

An important partner of the Disway association, Susanne Mannschott from Žitava and Radek Lípa, Mayor of Zákupy, presented the vision of the Orlík Incubation and Barrier-Free Centre project.

The rich programme was enlivened by experienced world travellers Maruška and Lída Harcubova. Their freshest experiences were from far away Japan, but they can talk about the barrier-free nature of famous places and attractions in Australia, America, South Africa and many others.

The speakers answered questions or you could finish everything during a great buffet.

We also toasted to 10 years of Disway and the success of our plans for the future.

We would like to thank all the participants of the conference "Travelling without Barriers" in Liberec for taking the time to contribute to the discussion on barrier-free travel.

Maruška Harcubová