Project title: Internet Newsstand with magazines for people with sight disability.
Beneficiary: “De Facto” - Mazovian Association for Work for the Disabled
City: Płock
Voivodeship: mazowieckie
Implementation time: July 2008- December 2009
Focus Area: Support and reinforcement of position of underprivileged and discriminated
In order to remove barriers in access to information for the blind we have created a newsstand with magazines for the sight impaired..
One cannot expect publishers to create special edition for the blind, especially that they could expect only several hundred readers. “De Facto” association downloads magazine files in the form they are sent to the printing houses, transforms them into a form legible for blind persons and publishes them in one place – in blind people magazines Newsstand. Transforming the magazines for the needs of the blind is based on removing graphical elements, advertisements, together with ordering them and returning continuity of the text. Currently, the Newsstand has over 300 users who can read 19 magazines from the publishing market.
The Newsstand’s offer is directed to active blind persons. It is a newsstand based on subscription. The transferred national magazines in digital form are sent to readers by e-mail or on CDs using post. The magazines in digital text files can be read using specialist computer station and specialist sounding programme. Currently we offer:
- National Magazines:
- For women: „Claudia”, „Magazyn Rodzinny”, and „Newsweek Kobieta”,
- Socio-political: „Wprost”, „Newsweek”, „Polityka”
- Daily newspapers: „Magazyn Polska The Times”
- For young people: „Młody Technik”
- For guitar fans: „Gitarzysta”
- For fans of the Internet: „Internet”.
- Regional daily newspapers in weekly forms: „Gazeta Krakowska”, „Głos Wielkopolski”, „Express Ilustrowany”, „Dziennik Zachodni”, „Dziennik Bałtycki”, „Gazeta Wrocławska”, „Kurier Lubelski”, „Dziennik Polski”, „Tygodnik Płocki".
The Newsstand is one of the most important information sources for the sight impaired, because they receive over 40 000 issues yearly for free.
The Newsstand prevents information exclusion of the sight impaired – according to Article 16 of the Commission Regulation (EC) no 1083/2006 from 11th July 2006. It provides diverse support depending on objective and subjective barriers of the blind readers. In each case it removes barriers preventing blind people from accessing information from polish newspapers.
Using the Newsstand allows the sight impaired to master computer skills, which in current era should not be considered as unusual, but as a common ability which allows a blind person to function independently in modern society.