Mabel Asensi, a deafblind person, Sonja Tarczay, EDbU chair and Ricard López, EDbN chair
During the 9th DbI European conference on deafblindness, the EDBN chair, Ricard López, scheduled numerous network meetings, all of which were a great success. The head of the European Deafblind Union (EDBU), Sanja Tarczay, came at one of the meetings. The meeting’s goal was to start working together between EDBN and EDBU. Both the European Association of Parents and Carers of Deafblind People (EDBN) and the European Association of Deafblind People (EDBU) are organizations. Due to the loss of their two most essential senses, deafblind people are very reliant on their families. Because of this, relationships between parents and caregivers are also quite important.
As a result of the meeting two projects were planned. The first one is an “Info day” in the European Parliament. It has not been decided exactly when, but during 2018 there will be an “Info day” in Brussels about the use of the “red and white cane”.
The second endeavor is a group of deafblind pilgrims and a few volunteers traveling to Santiago de Compostela. This journey has been made twice previously,
first in 2015 subsequently, last year five deafblind persons completed the final 100 km of the Camino de Santiago last year. The fact that people from Scotland and Hungary joined this pilgrimage made it an even greater accomplishment. This project aims to build upon and expand upon that success.
In 2018, there will be parallel pilgrimages to holy sites in other nations in addition to the international pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. They will walk to the Jasna Góra monastery in Czstochowa in Poland, Nuestra Seora de Lujan in Argentina, and Morro Pan de Azcar in Brazil on their pilgrimages. It was initially planned to happen in September, but there would be too many conferences and events for it to be feasible. Finally, it will be held from July 2 through July 8 (Save the Date! ), immediately following June 27th, which is International Deafblindness Day. To enable certain families with deafblind children and adults to travel to Spain and take part in this pilgrimage, EDBN has approached the Russian Deaf-blind Support Fund So-Edinenie for financial assistance.
Please visit http://2s4db.org for more information.
We will do our best to make this projects happen.