On the first meeting the participants went through an introduction lecture about accessibility in educational services, where they learned basic accessibility terms, the accessibility laws and legislation and how to create accessibility in society.

On the second meeting, led by Revital Schwartz Svirsky, the manager of Access Israel North and the Vice Mayor of Keriat Bialik, the participants went through a fun accessibility event where they met four people with different disabilities (vision, hearing, mobility, and communication), who shared with them their personal experiences and the best way to implement accessibility and inclusion. The participants experienced the different disabilities for in a fun and experiential way.

At the end of the meeting Yossi Hloani, the school manager, shared his feelings: “There’s nothing like it! It was an emotional, intimate, and educational evening. Thank you for letting us be there and thank you for how you passed on the message.”.

On the third and last meeting, the participants went through an activity on the subject of remote accessible learning, which discussed the challenges and existing solutions of remote studying for students with different disabilities. During this activity the participants shared their own personal challenges, and received basic tools for teaching in an accessible and inclusive way.

At the end of the last meeting, Yuval Wagner, founder and CEO of the organization shared his feelings with the teachers:

“All around the world, in all areas of life – consumerism, services, health services and education we see that everything becomes more and more customized…. In the field of advanced accessibility and especially accessible technology we see the meaning of personalization, the meaning of looking at every child individually and the customization of education in general grows more and receives a deeper meaning. It will be interesting to see how this will eventually allow children with disabilities to become more included on the one hand and to be able to study together with the class on the other. You are the ones that allow that to succussed. Eventually, like in organizations, what matters is who’s the manager, on a classroom level what matters is the teacher. And every teacher or principal that decides that he wants to create accessibility and inclusion, I have no doubt that there’s immense potential here that can create success for the students. Success for the students is success for you as well, it’s success for the student’s family and friends too…”

Yuval Wagner shared his feelings with the teachers.

The principle summed up to program as well: “I thank you for allowing us to experience such an enlightening and experiential activity, an activity that touched each and every one of us personally, an activity that I will recommend to anyone in a similar position! Good night.”

Access Israel thanks the Kadima School staff for their hospitality and their great work on inclusion throughout the year! And thank you to Keriat Bialik, for the long years of support in performing accessibility activities for the cities’ students and teachers. And of course, thank you to Globrands for the support!