The Grupo Social ONCE is offering its collaboration to the citizens of Calpe. To this end, the Director of the ONCE in both Marinas, Vicente J. Vázquez, has met with the Mayor, Ana Sala, to whom he has presented different ways of understanding in favour of blind people or people with other disabilities.
In this first meeting between the parties, global issues were addressed to present the different possible ways of collaboration between the ONCE Social Group and the City Council; in different areas such as accessibility, employment, global awareness and training.
The ONCE representative discussed various issues related to people with disabilities, to which the Mayoress showed receptivity and also expressed her willingness to achieve the objective of mainstreaming accessibility in all areas of the City Council's management. Finally, a multisectoral meeting has been organised, at which various municipal areas and others of the ONCE Social Group can begin work on the issues addressed.
In addition, the problems faced by disabled people in finding employment have been addressed. The ONCE Social Group believes that local councils play an important role in this area due to their proximity to citizens and therefore makes the resources of the ONCE Foundation and Inserta Empleo available to them to include disabled people in the council's employment exchange.
Regarding public employment, the representative of the ONCE Social Group has made the municipal representative aware of the importance of promoting responsible public procurement in favour of Special Employment Centres of social initiative, as is the case of ILUNION and the companies of the ONCE Social Group.
In terms of accessibility, the initiatives to be considered in terms of signage, information, adaptation of pavements, single platforms and the management of acoustic traffic lights have been discussed in general terms; although it has gone into detail in working on inclusive access to tourism, suggesting that more concrete actions be addressed for the next summer campaign.
The active participation of the ONCE Social Group in the town has been promoted, emphasising the importance of having this organisation in the day-to-day life of the town, in order to be able to make contributions prior to projects as well as proposals for new actions to be designed.
The Mayoress has expressed her willingness to promote and collaborate as much as possible in the different activities carried out in her locality in order to make the ONCE Social Group more visible. She has also committed to analysing what was discussed in this interesting meeting and to scheduling the actions to ensure that they are addressed.