During the afternoon of the 26^thof January 2021 we developed another webinar, this time about “Distance Learning and Training for VIP: how are we doing it…”.

This was the perfect opportunity for our members to exchange some ideas, presenting the different areas they have and how are they coping with the “new” issues imposed by the distance learning for visually impaired people in this pandemic situation and home-office time.

To kick star this webinar/exchange, we had 3 presentations:

• Vera Rapagão, from Fundação Raquel e Martin Sain, Portugal;
• Petra Greiser, from BFW Halle, Germany;
• Martina Smolčić, from the Vinko Bek Center for Education, Croatia.

This webinar was attended by 37 participants from our members, joining from countries like Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxemburg, and Portugal.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels.

On the 14^th of December 2020, for an audience of about 20 people from different European countries, ENVITER had its first ever Webinar, using Zoom.

The theme was “The role of a Visual Impairment professional in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) services”, presented by Monika Toth and Krisztina Katona, from Hungary.

If you are interested in this subject, you can take a look at the presentation or contact our Hungarian partner (School for the Blind, Budapest)

Photo by Eren Li from Pexels.

This year, ENVITER General Meeting took us to the beautiful city of Zagreb, Croatia.

During 3 working days, 38 participants from 11 different European countries (Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, The Netherlands), representing 80% of our members, had time and opportunity to discuss about different aspects of our Network activities and to remind us all why we are here: to network, exchange knowledge, good practices and to look for opportunities to disseminate, research and training.

With a Conference day dedicate to the theme “Transformations and innovations in our organisations -The Times They Are a-Changin’”, we had, to an audience of 68 participants, 11 presentations and 2 workshops, provided by different organisations and professionals from diverse countries, according to the program below.

Presentations:

• Educating future professionals: necessity of knowledge, expertise and experience exchange – Sonja Alimovic, University of Zagreb, Department for visual impairments, Faculty of education and rehabilitation sciences, Croatia
• Self-determination of clients and teams – Lia Van der Ham, Robert Coppes Foundation, The Netherlands
• A project of research on CVI – Philippe Belseur and Catherine Thibault, VYV Care-Monteclair, France
• Learning or visual functioning problems among children in regular schools, Andrea Paulik, Mali Dom, Croatia
• Visual art and visual impairment – Tanja Parlov, Centre Vinko Bek, Croatia
• Home Care Premium – Elena Weber, Rittmeyer Institute, Italy
• Stepped Care Model – Ruben Koman, VISIO, The Netherlands
• Support for children with visual impairment in the Republic of Croatia: some examples for thinking – Anita Lukic, Centre Vinko Bek, Croatia
• Assistance dogs and their role in regard to blind and visually impaired children – Minja Orlić, Rehabilitation Centre Silver, Croatia
• Who has to change? – Agnes Somorjai, Budapest School for the Blind, Hungary
• Psychosocial rehabilitation and working methods at the adult department – Ana Petrinec and Emina Sisic-Andelic, Centre Vinko Bek, Croatia

Workshops:

• Feelif – Rebeka Žerovnik, Feelif, Slovenia
• Social-media workshop – Ruben Koman, VISIO, The Netherlands

This year, Copenhagen (Denmark) was the city that hosted ENVITER’s annual Blue Sky Meeting (BSM). On April 9th and 10th, 27 participants representing 18 of the network members gathered at IBOS (Instituttet for Blinde og Svagsynede – Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted) to brainstorm about ideas for project proposals and develop constructive workshops.

These annual BSM are developed with the financial support of the network itself, sponsoring the involvement of a person per member and this way promoting  the opportunity to meet together and to take part in the growth of ENVITER, by encouraging work on new project topics and proposals for submission for funding.

Next year, in April, Trieste (Italy) will be the place to be if you wish to participate in ENVITER’s Blue Sky Meeting 2020!