Over 60 participants received accessibility training

Three two-day trainings were held in Novi Sad on 21-22 June, 28-29. June and 5-6 July 2021, attended by over 60 participants, employees of public administration services at the national, provincial, and local levels, engineers, architects, urban planners, and representatives of civil society organizations. 

Two-day trainings "Implementation of European accessibility policies in practice" on European accessibility practices in the Republic of Serbia were organized as the second level of training within the Project "EU for Accessible Public Facilities", funded by the European Union. Their purpose was to raise understanding related to experiences in the implementation of accessibility policies in the Republic of Serbia.

The focus of the training was to get participants acquainted with examples from practice and the most common problems in the application of accessibility and design for all, both in Serbia and in EU member states.

Bearing in mind that the City of Novi Sad, one of the few cities in Serbia that can boast of accessible public spaces, it was deliberately chosen as a city that should serve as an example to other local governments in Serbia. During the two-day work, the intention was to show the participants good examples of Novi Sad, with the idea to apply these examples of good practice in their communities.

As one of the project activities are advocacy aimed at analyzing the existing legislative framework, as well as preparing recommendations for improving the law in the field of accessibility, the trainings, in addition to transferring knowledge about accessibility and design for all, were an opportunity to discuss the draft document and to work on its improvement, based on the collected opinions of the participants. The purpose of this document is to point out through specific recommendations the need for amendments to existing regulations in order to improve the existing situation related to the accessibility of public facilities.