Foundation Projects

This project aims to assist people with visual disabilities in Bangladesh, by disseminating standards on accessible web design and screen-reading software.

Around 20% of the population of Bangladesh lives under the poverty line. As Internet adoption rapidly climbs, new opportunities in employment and education are presented via the Internet. However, people with visual disabilities face added challenges in Internet accessibility. This project from Humanity & Inclusion in collaboration with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), funded with a small grant, applied an innovative and holistic approach by addressing the roots of the problem with a cross-sectoral approach, that will benefit all websites and people with disabilities.

The project created web accessibility guidelines for web developers in Bangladesh, tools for performing accessibility audits, a training manual for educating persons with disabilities and built the skills of 100 persons with disabilities on the use of screen reading software to access web platforms, applications and services. The Guidelines, which were created in partnership with the Access to Information (A2I) program from the Prime Minister’s Office, were endorsed by the Government of Bangladesh after engaging with policy makers. The guidelines were used in an audit conducted on government websites using the toolkit.

Persons with disabilities were not only the main direct beneficiaries, but were also involved with every aspect of this project, from planning to execution. Additionally, it ensured equal participation of women in the planning to execution process especially the capacity building training (39 girls) based on standard accessible guideline.