SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Cabildo de Tenerife, through the Insular Society for the Promotion of People with Disabilities, Sinpromi, has presented this Thursday the ‘Red ME Watch me to listen to me’, a pioneering initiative in Spain that aims to facilitate the communication of people with disabilities , the elderly and people with special needs for educational support through the implementation of augmentative and alternative communication systems.
The third vice president and insular councilor for Social Action, Marián Franquet, has reaffirmed the need to “guarantee the basic right to communication”, which is why she has invited all public administrations and entities “to join this unique initiative and pioneer “.
An initiative, he assured, “that will improve the quality of life of those people who start from a disadvantaged situation, because, unfortunately, disability continues to be a disadvantageous situation for many people”.
The counselor thanked the entities and occupational centers participating in the pilot project ‘Look at me to listen to me’, for their involvement and work, and insisted that human beings have a “very important” need for communication since they are born.
“We are advanced beings because we communicate, communication is key to live in community and to meet our needs,” he closed.
Those entities and public administrations that want to promote and reinforce their good practices in accessible communication may join this network, incorporating communication systems that complement or replace oral language (use of images, sign language, pictographic systems or communicators. assisted by technology), in order to facilitate participation and social inclusion.
The ‘Red ME’, which will be established on a permanent basis, was born from the pilot project ‘Look at me to listen to me’, which implemented pictographic communication systems in centers and direct care services for people with disabilities.
The project had the participation of 25 entities and 35 professionals, who will join the new network and who were trained in communication systems, which allowed to improve the quality of life of 100 users.
The presentation ceremony was also attended by the insular director of Innovation, Planning and Strategy of Social Action, Ascensión Bacallado and the person in charge of the Sinpromi Social Technological Innovation area, Virginia González.
For Ascensión Bacallado, the ‘Red ME’ “understands social innovation as a new way of doing things” and aims to generate “an empowerment of people and entities that work with these realities”.
EXCHANGES BETWEEN PROFESSIONALS
Virginia González, for her part, highlighted the need for a large part of the efforts to focus “on generating exchanges and encounters between professionals, family members and people who use alternative communication systems”, since “they are the true protagonists”.
The head of Innovation at Sinpromi hopes that 2022 will be an important milestone and it is understood that all people communicate from birth and “everyone” has “the same right” to access that communication.
Sinpromi’s Social Technological Innovation area, through its Information Center for Autonomous Life (CIVAT), has experienced an increase in the request for advice related to accessible communication, as well as in the request for devices and support products to exercise the right to communication.
For this reason, the ‘Red ME’ is conceived as a meeting point for debate and the exchange of ideas and experiences, but also as a space that will allow professionals to be updated on the communication needs of people with disabilities, people older people and people with special educational support needs.
This initiative will therefore make it possible for the municipalities to have the necessary tools at their disposal to design actions that ensure the communication of all citizens as a fundamental way for participation and social inclusion.
Looking ahead to 2022, the forecasts are that the ‘ME Network’ will have the participation of 50 entities, that the work will be coordinated by about 75 professionals and that more than 200 people will be served with augmentative and alternative communication.
