WHY WE DID IT?
By learning in groups, we could see the difference from each culture and how other countries may have better or worse services for people with low vision. By doing such we could help each other with our weaknesses, we could teach each other and be taught with each other’s problems. We did in order to improve our own personal lifestyle or techniques on mobility and adapting. So, we could learn to use different kinds of transportation systems and how to deal with them, to be able to see how a certain element of transportation and service can affect our lives. Also, we did it in order to explore the visibility, usability, and mobility, and how to improve a city to help people who are visually impaired. We believe that by helping the visually impaired other groups like the elderly and children will be helped as well.
WHAT WE DID?
We went out in small groups of four people of mixed genders, countries, and levels of sight.Each group went out to different locations and took different routes and tried different kinds of transportation. We had to do this on our own without help of the trainers, who were there with us, unless we needed assistance in case we were lost, so we could learn how to move independently using different kinds of maps and aids such as magnifiers. We were given the challenge of a deadline and a meeting spot on which we were to meet and then have dinner and unwind with the whole ground. We visited tourist attractions, as for example the East Side gallery, the Berlin Wall Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, Bernauer Strasse Wall Memorial, Friedrichshain, and the Holocaust Museum.
RESULTS OF THE DAY
We gained confidence in our own abilities and our new found knowledge from the group. We learned to trust others and ask for help when we need to. We met people who could relate to us. We became more open to sharing, learning, and teaching each other, and having fun doing so. It was encouraging for everyone and it gave us the confidence to take steps forward, and to bring it with us back home. We gained confidence to try new things that this day brought about. All in all it was an uplifting experience.
Written by Taraneh Nasiri, Maaike Bennink, Patrick Fehr.