Bankinter is taking part in the “Valuing (Dis)Ability” (“Valoremos la (dis) capacidad”) conference, organised by the Equipara Foundation.
The goal of this conference is to raise awareness among university students on the issue of accessibility in order to integrate people with disabilities in the university environment.
Bankinter will give a presentation on its project “Un banco para todos” (A bank for everyone), which aims to make the entity an inclusive bank and extend that commitment to all the agents with which it interacts.
One hundred university students are attending the “Valuing (Dis)Ability” conference today. Bankinter is participating, along with the Equipara Foundation and Rey Juan Carlos University, with the aim of raising awareness and improving knowledge among university students on accessibility issues in order to achieve full integration of people with disabilities in the university environment.
The training portion took place at the head office of Bankinter, which is certified for Universal Physical Accessibility as per the UNE 170001 standard. It was opened by Inés García Paine, Director of External Communications and Corporate Responsibility at Bankinter. She conveyed to students the bank’s firm commitment to accessibility, as embodied in the project “Un banco para todos”, part of the “Tres en Raya” (Noughts and Crosses) Sustainability Plan which aims to integrate the management of the three dimensions of business (economic, social and environmental) within the company.
Through this project, Bankinter is focusing on the continuous improvement of its accessibility, not only undertaking the necessary work, as far as the removal of physical barriers, to meet the DALCO criteria (from the Spanish acronym for wandering, apprehension, location and communication), but also through technological innovation and its broad multichannel offering. The company is also developing training courses for its employees so that anyone who interacts with the bank, regardless of their abilities, is attended in the best way possible and receives the highest quality of service. Bankinter encourages responsible behaviour regarding universal accessibility and supports the development of related projects, such as the Mapp4All application.
Josep Esteba, General Director of the Equipara Foundation, will explain the purpose of the conference to students and present the Mapp4All application. Mapp4All is a free application created by the Foundation that allows users to include various places of interest (from bars, hotels, banks, theatres and shops to public transport, parks, government agencies, corporate offices, notaries, churches, etc.) indicating the accessible elements they have and those they lack (whether they have ramps, Braille instructions, adapted toilets, rooms for breastfeeding, gluten-free dishes on the menu, etc.) with the aim of creating the first map of universal accessibility
Ricardo Moreno, Coordinator of the Support for Disabled People Programme at Rey Juan Carlos University, will remind students about the basic guidelines of accessibility.Rey Juan Carlos University, where it is compulsory for all students to take the course on “Universal Accessibility and Design for All”, is one of the most committed in this area.
The practical lesson will happen on the streets of Madrid, where university students, in groups of six and accompanied by a person with disability, will assess the accessibility of sites and establishments in the assigned area. Following a schedule, students will identify five different roles within the group: “Experimentadores” ('Experimenters'), who will accompany the disabled person to experience first-hand the daily obstacles they face; “Concienciadores” ('Awareness Raisers'), who will raise the awareness of pedestrians and establishment owners regarding the need to improve accessibility; “Registradores” ('Recorders'), who will be responsible for including information on the accessibility of the places visited in the Mapp4All application; and a Jefe de Comunicación (Head of Communication), who, using Twitter and coordinated by the Equipara Foundation, will be responsible for coordinating with the other groups regarding location, number of places visited, etc.
The conference will end with the lecture “Aprende de lo diferente” (Learn from what is different) , given by Eugenio de Andrés, Managing Partner of Tatum and patron of the Equipara Foundation. Josep Esteba, Director of the Equipara Foundation, will reflect with the students on difference as a value, rather than a defect, and discuss the values that drive people with disabilities, such as overcoming obstacles.