It is “essential” to consult people with a disability when developing a product or service because lack of accessibility could cost a person one’s employment or education, according to the CEO of the Foundation for IT Accessibility, Stanley Debono.
As the name implies, the foundation aims to make technology accessible to all and it leads by example because five out of its seven employees have a disability.
“While IT technology makes life easier for people without a disability, it allows people with a disability to do things that they would otherwise not be able to.
“It opens a door to education and employment. It is, therefore, important that all services are accessible, so that people with a disability have the opportunity to reach their full potential,” Mr Debono told this newspaper.
Fita is holding a series of events to mark its 15th anniversary.
Until the year 2000, the entity that is today known as the Malta Information Technology Agency, used to provide a service for blind people. As the island geared up towards a national strategy for technology on the turn of the century, upon the recommendation of Joseph Camilleri, then chairman of the National Commission people with Disability, Mita realised it needed to extend its services to all forms of disability.
Mr Debono said that when IT technology was not accessible to all, the country risked losing out on people’s potential.
It allows people with a disability to do things that they would otherwise not be able to.
One of Fita’s employees, Maria Mercieca, used a mouth stick to type and was more productive than people without a disability who use a keyboard, he noted. Ms Mercieca, who does most of the administrative work and coordinates IT training, among others, has been working for Fita for eight years, following a work experience through the then Employment and Training Corporation.
Aged 29 at the time, Ms Mercieca had spent seven years looking for a full-time job. On joining Fita, she had her desk height adjusted and adequate software installed so she can answer the phone without having to hold a receiver, among other things.
At Fita, IT equipment was adapted to the individual’s needs and the involvement of people with a disability when it came to make a workplace accessible to all was essential, Mr Debono noted.
A Fita report on employers’ attitudes towards ICT accessibility published in 2014 showed that only 12 per cent of the total 234 surveyed companies employed people with a disability.
Asked what type of assistive devices were used by their disabled employees, more than half (56 per cent) said they used none and the rest mentioned armrests, touch screens, tracker balls and portable tape recorders, among others.
Two-fifths of the companies lacking a corporate policy towards people with disabilities said they lacked awareness in the specific field of disability.
One of Fita’s tasks is raising awareness and finding gaps in the service provision sector. It provides consultancy and auditing, ICT training, braille embossing for those who want to produce conference programmes or restaurant menus and also develops software such as the Maltese speech synthesiser. Developed with the collaboration of Crimsonwing, the speech synthesiser transforms electronic text into spoken Maltese.
Although most of the people seeking Fita’s support are those with a disability, the agency is trying to raise awareness among everyone, especially because there are people who van develop some form of disability within days, either because of a chronic illness or some injury.
Unless Fita managed to reach such people within the first few months, during which they adapted to their new reality, the changes in their life could be long-term as they might have to stop working or studying, Mr Debono said.
More information on www.fitamalta.eu.
