Universal Design & Inclusive Education in BrasilVerônica Camisão, Architect, Accessibility Coordinator, Centro de Vida Independente do Rio de Janeiro (CVI-Rio), Brazil AbstractThe Independent Living Center of Rio de Janeiro- CVI-Rio, has been working for years with the demand for accessible solutions to school buildings, and had the chance to assess the changes that have been occurring in Brazil in this field, during the last decade. Since 1995, with the partnership with Helena Antipoff Institute, CVI-Rio developed some projects aimed at the inclusive education concept, which brought to regular education classrooms many children with disabilities. We must structure a detailed governmental educational program, aiming to adopt the universal design principals in every building, urban design, design of a graphic computation project, to assure the practice and quality of the project. PaperDuring the last decade, the modern educational behavior has changed by absorbing the inclusive education concept, which brought to regular education classrooms many children with disabilities, who were in special schools up to that time. Since then the schools had to cope with several students with different ways of walking, writing and playing. And the institutions were expected to guarantee that their teachers, environments and furniture were able to receive those new pupils. However, that was not the situation found by some mobility impaired children as an example, when they first arrived at school. The Independent Living Center of Rio de Janeiro (CVI-Rio), a nongovernmental organization whose Accessibility Department has been working for years on this field, was used to receive until the end of the 90th decade, the requests for accessible solutions to school buildings coming from the disabled children's mothers. The children were hindered to use school environments, because of the architectural barriers, which reinforced to many others the obstacles for inclusion. Some mothers spent - and still do spend - part of their day at school receptions, waiting to help their child to go up and down stairs in order to be included. In 1995, a partnership between the Helena Antipoff Institute and the Independent Living Workshop of CVI-RIO was established to place disabled children in regular education classes, to promote social inclusion. The project expected also, to guide teachers by facilitating information and familiarity with the new students needs. We had the chance to participate in the changes that have been occurring since than. At this moment, in some Brazilian cities -mostly due to effective laws - when a school began any modification works, accessibility is also the target. Most of the time accessible issues means just restricted adaptations, the installation of short ramps or bathroom facilities, mostly on inadequate standards. Usually in Brazil, the will to set right does exist, but the work is done without any project investment. We end up with adaptations that are not used because their low technical quality: ramps that are extremely steep skid soil or inaccessible already modified bathrooms. In a general way, the "Brazilian accessibility production," in equipments, buildings and adaptations relating to products and projects is still largely ad hoc and many remodeling issues are executed in an improvised way. In several cases the needed resources and the adaptation works are provided but they obey only the technical standards, making the works inadequate or useless. So, it is important to invest in the technical information in relation to education, architecture, engineering, transports and other areas, responsible for the school infrastructure. We think there are some actions to be studied:
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