Accessible platform screening events for 12 accessibility features

VEM CA is a free and accessible phone app, developed by the Brazilian NGO Escola de Gente, that informs users where and when accessible events are taking place. The app covers hundreds of events every year and allows users to search by 12 accessible features and in 24 event categories.

Escola de Gente is a large NGO based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which works on inclusion, accessibility, and diversity. In 2018 it created VEM CA, a free and accessible phone app that informs the user where and when accessible events are happening all over the country. Specifically, it enables searches for 12 accessibility features – such as captions, tactile flooring, sign language, and easy language – across 24 event categories, including theatres, cinemas, museums, etc. Between 2018 and 2021, VEM CA had featured almost 600 events.

Problems Targeted

People with disabilities often do not participate fully in the cultural life of their cities due to a lack of information on accessibility provisions.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

The VEM CA app is available on Android and iOS for free, and is fully accessible with sign language, subtitles, audio description, easy language, enlarged letters, and colour contrast. It provides information on cultural events – such as theatre performances, exhibitions, and movies – those users can attend in person; and since the COVID-19 pandemic it also provides information on cultural events taking place online. VEM CA provides details on 12 accessibility features and indicates which are offered at each event, including accessible seating, audio description, accessible restrooms, elevators/ramps, easy language, tactile flooring, and accessible publications. The app was created in consultation with people with disabilities, who now form part of its creative committee. More than 15,000 people downloaded VEM CA in 2019. In 2021, VEM CA was updated with the first online database for accessibility professionals to offer their services.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

VEM CA is financed by sponsorship from large companies and the app is free to the end users. Escola de Gente has created a plan for individuals or companies to make donations directly via the app, which will go towards maintenance and improvement. In addition, the plan includes the provision of app services sponsored by companies interested in offering their workforce accessible content on inclusion. Escola de Gente plans to triple the number of users through media campaigns and digital marketing. Other ambitions include making VEM CA a global reference for accessible apps, partnering with a university to conduct research through the app, and creating a network to train young people with and without disabilities about accessibility and inclusion.

Pictures

Claudia Werneck of Escola de Gente shows the VEM CA app

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