First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska took part in a meeting of the Business Without Barriers community, united by her initiative “Without Barriers.” The community includes companies that share and implement equal opportunity values for their employees and customers.
The event was attended by Nataliia Kalmykova, Minister of Veterans Affairs, and Andriy Pyshnyy, Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.
The meeting focused primarily on projects implemented within companies and with community members, team training, and communications. These areas were identified as priorities during the Business Without Barriers community's strategic session at the beginning of the year.
“There is a phrase: ‘the best version of us.’ Accessibility is the best version of our shared present. The version where all of us, regardless of age, gender, health status, even enemy attacks, have a quality and decent life. And during the country's defense, responsible businesses are those that not only provide services and goods, but also ensure resilience,” Olena Zelenska said.
Each company within the community has its own project to develop accessibility. For example, Nova Post opened its first barrier-free post office: with a threshold-free entrance, tactile tiles across the entire area, a mnemonic scheme, a sound beacon on the door, adapted furniture, and a digital assistant.
Ukrzaliznytsia began renovating stations in Kyiv and Lviv this year, modernized 50 train cars, added an online service for ordering a station assistant and sign language announcements on high-speed trains and at train stations.
Foxtrot has expanded its sign language service throughout the year (to 30 stores in the network), where customer communication is conducted with the help of an online sign language interpreter.
Almost all companies in the community are implementing projects aimed at supporting the reintegration of veterans. These include DTEK, McDonald's in Ukraine, SoftServe, Silpo, and FUIB.
One of the projects implemented is a mobile rehabilitation modules project supported by Visa, Oschadbank, and PrivatBank. These are accessible spaces that provide a full range of services for physical and psychological recovery.
Together with Mastercard, Ukrzaliznytsia has adapted its application for people with visual impairments: all interface elements can now be interacted with via voice control.
All companies within the Business Without Barriers community have trained their employees this year on appropriate communication and interaction: Ukrzaliznytsia conducted a course on barrier-free literacy (20 thousand employees), McDonald's in Ukraine – interaction with people with war experience (over 5.5 thousand employees), OKKO – accessible communication and emotional support (3.7 thousand employees), Foxtrot – principles of accessibility (2.5 thousand employees), FUIB – appropriate communication when providing services to people with disabilities (2 thousand employees), SOCAR (2 thousand employees).
In addition, EPAM provides training on digital accessibility for students and future IT professionals.
Starlight Media and 1+1 take an integrated approach to communicating accessibility across all their media products. At PrivatBank, Cardman talks about accessibility: during every transaction in the mobile application, the mascot reminds people to take care of themselves and others and explains the rules for the correct use of terms. And FUIB uses the photo project “Unbreakable Stories of Veterans” with Kostiantyn Liberov for the same purpose.
“In each of your projects presented here today, it is not just the numbers that are important, although they are impressive, but the specific human destinies that have changed for the better,” the First Lady emphasized
During the event, she spoke about the update of the Barrier-Free Handbook, a guide to appropriate communication and interaction created at her initiative. The Barrier Free Handbook is available at the link.
The community members received the Business Without Barriers award at the meeting.
“Your experiences and your projects can also serve as a useful guide for others. I believe that accessibility is not created by official decrees. Only those who are humane themselves can make humanity a new value,” Olena Zelenska concluded.
As a result of the meeting, the declaration on the implementation of the accessibility principles was signed by the MEGOGO media service, the LUN IT company, and the Kernel agro-industrial company.