In mid-September, we attended a sensitization training at the First Universal Design Information and Research Center of Hungary (ETIKK).
After a brief introduction and presentation of the correct use of the wheelchair and white stick, the braver colleagues could experience in real life what it would be like to walk blind in the Lurdy House building and on the noisy Könyves Kálmán Boulevard; or be in a wheelchair on the tram rails of Mester street – with the absence of a lowered crossing – on the roadside of a few centimeters.
Gutsy colleagues walked around blindfolded while others where there as an outside observer. One walked the whole way with a blindfold of course with a sighted companion. Adventurous participants unanimously felt it was a terrifying feeling to completely losing their sense of spacewalking with glasses that simulated visual impairment or total blindness.
Returning to the center, we discussed the experienced difficulties of overcoming obstacles.
The wheelchair was more popular, after all, everyone likes the dodgem, even if it is on a difficult filed and in a manual version. The greatest difficulty was to overcome the thresholds, benches, tram rails and climbs and trying to get across obstacles in a determined but wise way, without capsizing the wheelchair. In addition, it was an unusual experience to see the environment from a lower, completely different perspective.
In the gallery, we also provide a brief pictorial summary of the instructive program:
