The president of the European Deafblind Network, Ricard López, has travelled to Brussels to attend the Annual General Assembly of the European Disability Forum (EDF) and the 5th European Parliament of Persons with Disabilities (EPPD).
Two major disability events are taking place in Brussels this week: The General Assembly of the European Disability Forum (EDF), which is the leading disability rights organization in Europe as it represents 100 million people in Europe, and the European Parliament of Persons with Disabilities (EPPD), an event that brings together leading European politicians to voice the needs of people with disabilities in Europe.
During these two days, several representatives of disability organizations from all across Europe will meet to discuss issues relevant to their communities that will shape disability policy agendas for the coming year.
To represent deafblindness, two spokespeople of the European Deafblind Network (EDbN) have come to Brussels (Ricard López, president of EDbN, and Agustí Vilar, a person with deafblindness and member of EDbN) with a clear agenda: to present Agustí for the EDF board in order to have better representation of deafblindness in this forum and to meet Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, in the context of the EPPD, to display the need of support for deafblindness in Europe.
At the EDF General Assembly, the budgets and work plan of the past year and those up to 2024 will be discussed, as well as a review of the most relevant events of the commissions of women and young people with disabilities. In addition, the EDbN, will present Agustí Vilar, a person with acquired deafblindness who is part of the organization and aims to give voice and visibility to this disability.
As for the EPPD, EDF will present to senior representatives of the European Commission and Parliament its manifesto, which this year revolves around mobility, poverty and future prospects in the current context. This event will be attended by Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, with whom Ricard Lopez has scheduled a meeting to present to her the red and white cane, representative of the deafblindness community, to make this disability visible and raise awarness of the needs of the group.