Lars Bosselmann - European Blind Union

00:05 S1

This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia Radio.

00:12 S2

Hello, I'm Sam.

00:13 S3

And I'm Lizzie.

00:15 S2

And this is Studio One1, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view. Here on Vision Australia Radio.

00:20 S3

On this week's show, we turn our attention overseas - Lars Bosselmann, the Executive Director of the European Blind Union, is our guest.

00:29 S2

We also have a couple of things to say about a certain White House press conference held last week.

00:35 S3

As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know - your story and insight may help someone who's dealing with something similar.

00:51 S2

You can email us, studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org.

00:57 S3

Or of course you can search us up on Facebook. Just go to facebook.com, slash VA Radio Network.

01:04 S2

Hello, Lizzie. How are we going on this fine, but somewhat hot day?

01:09 S3

Very good, Sam. Very good. Although, as we were about to discuss very shortly, there's been some interesting developments over the weekend in terms of... disability inclusion and equity in the United States, hasn't there?

01:24 S2

Well, we've kind of been tracking this story for a little while, but some things kind of changed, on Friday. Now, I remember a comment that you'd said, when we were first talking about this on on Tuesday and you said Surely things affecting... people with a disability is just sort of collateral damage.

01:46 S3

Because we were commenting on the DEI initiatives. And for anyone that's not in the loop, DEI is diversity, equity and inclusion. And basically these initiatives that were enacted years ago were to make it fair and accessible for Americans with a disability or any accessibility issues, to be able to work in civil service jobs. And the reason that this conversation had come up in the beginning was because I was I'm actually following a few... blind and low vision content creators in America, and a lot of them have been commenting about the scrapping of these DEI initiatives. 

And they've been saying, look, as a person who's totally blind or has vision loss, I can't serve in the military and therefore a civil service job is the only way that I'm able to serve my country. And now you're basically telling me that you're no longer going to support accessibility in these fields, so I'm not going to be able to do the job that I want to do or have been doing in some cases. So yeah. And then of course, we fast forward to Friday, the DC airport crash and... with, a jet collided with a helicopter. And we also fast forward to Trump's comments. And we know now that it's not just a case of Trump mistaking.

03:05 S2

No, no, no, it's not a case of collateral damage.

03:08 S3

Because I had assumed that when they were talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, they were, you know, going through the whole gender roles and non-binary and like gender as a social construct. I was assuming that that's what they were talking about. But so I did think that, you know, I was hoping that it was because Donald Trump and his cabinet weren't aware of the effects that this would have with people with disabilities. But as we can clearly see by his comments on Friday, this isn't the case anymore. We're not collateral damage. We're clearly being targeted.

03:40 S2

So let's remind everybody of what exactly he said.

03:45 S4 (Trump)

We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas, and I think we'll probably state those opinions now. The FAA's website states they include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy. The FAA's Diversity and Inclusion Hiring Plan, which says diversity is integral to achieving FAA's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel. I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's just the opposite.

04:20 S2

Just the opposite. Just the opposite. I don't know about you. I'm not hankering for a job as an air traffic controller. I think that, frankly, as a person with a vision impairment, I would not be able to do it even with the most advanced adaptive software. I don't want to be the one that misses something and causes an accident.

04:39 S3

I completely understand that. But just because you don't want to, there might be other people out there that do. And I think this targeting of... people with disabilities is going to make it so that those particular people won't have the opportunity.

04:55 S2

Exactly right. And we're going to cross over to over to other disabilities now. I don't see any reason why someone in a wheelchair or someone missing a leg or an arm or something like that can't do that job. It could not be an air traffic controller.

05:08 S3

Well, as I commented to you before, Sam, in my opinion, as long as that candidate or that particular person has shown that they're able to do the job, their disability should not exclude them from doing that job. I mean, it's kind of pointless for me to become an air traffic controller because I'm totally blind. I can't see it on the screen. But then again, I wouldn't apply for that kind of job. Exactly.

05:30 S2

So what we are going are doing at the moment, we've got some feelers out for people in the, in America who have been covering these issues. And if we can speak to them, or if you know anybody who is based in America now and would like to speak to us, we want to hear from them as well.

05:46 S3

We do. I had a migraine now before, and now it's just up its level. Like my brain hurts just thinking about this.

05:52 S2

But let's move to something a bit more positive. Earlier this week, we talked to... Lars. And... it was a great interview. So let's cross over to that now.

06:05 S3

Today on Studio 1, we are talking to Lars Bosselmann, who is the director of the European Blind Union. Lars, welcome to Studio 1.

06:14 S5 (Lars)

Hello, from Paris. Across the time zone difference.

06:18 S3

Well, yes, exactly. It's... later on today, it's the evening. Here we are at the moment. And, what I'm looking at, the sun is starting to go down. It's... about, just under 30 degrees as far as temperature goes. And you can hear some Australian birds off in the distance. What is it like where you are?

06:37 S5

Well, I can tell you it's around 9:30 in the morning here. So ten hours or something like that before your time. And... we are, well, having, like, a end of January day, winter day meeting here in Paris. Quite, quite greyish, I would say today, the sky, as far as I can tell. I mean, I'm fully blind, so I'm not exactly sure, but it seems quite covered and cloudy and the sort of, the temperature will go up until ten degrees highest today. Well, that gives you an impression. Not exactly the same we're talking about here.

07:11 S3

So you're in Paris, but your accent isn't quite French?

07:15 S5

No. Personally speaking, I'm a... well spotted. Of course I'm a German citizen. I'm living in France for the last five years. And before that, I've been living in Belgium as well. So not been living in my own country for quite some time now. But yes, I'm German and that is probably more resonating with the accent I'm having actually here.

07:37 S3

Well, that's the funny thing, is that in Australia, if we talk about living in another country, it's always miles away from where we are. But I mean, it's compared to our corner of the world, home is, all things considered, not that far away.

07:51 S5

Yeah, that's the... I don't know whether it's the beauty or whatever it is of Europe. Of course you can, within quite short distances, go to quite different language communities, cultures and so on. So within quite a smaller space, you have all of that experience without travelling too far.

08:09 S3

And so it brings us quite neatly to the European Blind Union. You would support vision impaired and blind people. And so that would be from all across Europe, or just a particular section of the European Union?

08:23 S5

No. So we have as a European Blind Union, we are having 42 countries that are members in the Blind Union. So that gives you already quite an impression of... the breadth and the coverage of what we are doing. So this goes actually much beyond the European Union as a political entity, which only has 27 member states.

08:46 S3

So what is your role within the European Union?

08:49 S5

So my my own role is, as you already said in the introduction, I'm the Executive Director, so that means I'm on the one hand, of course, very much working with our own leadership, the board and so on to support them in their work that they can fulfill their duties. But I'm also heading the secretariat, the office of EBU, which has now eight members or eight staff members, I should more correctly say in different fields of activity. So I'm heading that entity of the organisation. 

And then I'm of course, having a lot of more, let's say, representational tasks to do - communication... and this interview being part of of that as well, but also in the area of political work, advocacy work, as we would probably call it, where I'm also having a representational role to represent the interests of blind and partially sighted people at political meetings, whether it's European Union level or other meetings, depending on the circumstances, of course.

09:54 S3

So what made you want to get involved with the EBU?

09:58 S5

So, as I said, in terms of timing, it was about five years ago, actually, almost on the day, five years ago that I started... my current role here within the European Blind Union. And what made me at the time apply, and that inspired me and motivated me and continues to motivate me still today, is actually, on the one hand, myself a blind person since my birth... so this is the personal story, of course, that motivates me to... do this... job, which then goes beyond the question of just earning your salary and your life, which is important, of course, as well. But it's actually I'm a strong believer that, of course, the interests and the rights of blind and partially sighted people should be represented and at the end of the day, achieved by those who have a lived experience of being blind or partially sighted. And so, in that spirit, if you'd like, I applied and apparently got the job at the time. 

So this was the main sort of factor of of motivation. The other one, maybe just to complete my answer here, was also that I have a background in working internationally or at Europe wide at least. And so I could ideally combine my self-motivation from my own, let's say, blindness that I'm having with my professional also, past experience in working at the European level within the Not For Profit sector.

11:33 S3

Can you tell us just offhand if you know, when was the EBU established?

11:38 S5

So we just last year actually celebrated our 40th anniversary. So this goes back to the '80s, mid '80s. '84, to be more precise, of course, it was established. So I let you judge whether this is a young or an old organisation or middle somehow. And of course, these days then when we were established in the mid 80s, were quite a different, a different time, obviously, politically speaking, in terms of the countries that existed, speaking in terms of the European Union and its political role. Speaking, of course... which at that time was much less than it is today.

12:22 S3

Definitely. And one of the reasons that I wanted to get in contact with you for this interview was because I read a very interesting article on the United Nations Regional Information Center about how Braille and AI... can shape the future for blind and vision impaired people. So, in your opinion, how can tools like Braille and AI help improve access to... information for blind and low vision individuals?

12:49 S5

Yeah, I think I mean, first of all, Braille, which is also celebrating an important anniversary this year, which means the 200 years of existence, if you'd like, is probably one of the best and most... groundbreaking innovations in the field of access or allowing access for blind and partially sighted people to many things. Information to start with, but not only education. Some of the more cultural spheres like music, sciences, learning languages and so on and so forth. So this is probably and one of the beauties I think of... Braille is on the one hand, it's very simple. Just combining a few dots together is as such, really simple as an idea. But at the same time, it's a genius idea and it makes it... let's say applicable to so many areas of life, as I already said. 

But also it makes it adaptable. So it was very useful already, such a long time ago when everything was paper based, let's say. And it also has made its transition to its nowadays where we are talking about tablets, computers, all kinds of devices, mobile devices and so on. So this is still extremely useful today. And actually because it can be so easily reproduced also electronically and not only on on paper. So I think this makes it so beautiful. And it has really meant a lot of progress for many blind and partially sighted people in in those areas. 

Now, when it comes to artificial intelligence, this is of course an area which we are talking about. Well, we are seeing already some of its potential, but probably even not, uh, 5% of what it's going to do in the future.

14:43 S3

Yeah, sure.

14:45 S5

So, already today, when we are looking at... I'm just trying to make some examples here from practical, from a practical level, when we're talking about voice recognition, where you can actually basically dictate a text to a machine, this is a kind of artificial intelligence, and then it recognises the words you are speaking and puts it into writing with a very limited number of mistakes. In reality, of course they are, you still need to correct some things, but, these tools are extremely developed already these days, and this has already been... a very significant improvement and progress for many blind and partially sighted people in the area of of communication in the wider sense, if you like.

15:32 S3

One of the things that I've been... amused about, um, artificial intelligence... there was an article about it recently, and in fact, in that unlike a lot of other computer programs, Rams. When it doesn't know something, it ends up filling in the gaps for itself, and some of the results can be rather amusing. So if it mishears something a word, it will put in the word that it thinks that it should be, as opposed to just simply saying, Sorry, I don't know. So,  while a lot it is a very useful tool at the moment, it is also a very limited tool.

16:05 S5

It's clear that there's a lot of development that still needs to to to happen. That's what I was saying. I think we only see probably a certain very tiny percentage of what it's supposed to do or possibly able to do in, in moving forward, of course. And there are also threats, let's say also or at least challenges with Artificial Intelligence. So it's not all that it's innovative and positive necessarily. But I mean, if you look at things like in recruitment, Artificial Intelligence can be used or is in some cases is already used today for shortlisting candidates. 

Now let's assume there is a blind candidate applying for a job, and the Artificial Intelligence tool is actually somehow insisting on the person who is applying to look straight into the camera during an interview or some kind of a presentation video even, which may replace a CV or whatever. And if the, if it's set up the tool in such a way that this eliminates the candidate because of him or herself not being able to because of the blindness or sight restriction, somehow not being able to just look straight into the camera as maybe sighted people would do, well, then this is possibly excluding people from opportunities. So there are also risks that we of course should not here ignore from that, from the discussion. 

Then maybe I would also say more on the positive side, where I at least more personally... this is not as such a European Union Union's point of view, but my personal hope very strongly in the area of Artificial Intelligence, is about accessibility overall. Now, today, we are always catching up with making documents accessible, making whole websites accessible or mobile applications because in the beginning, often this is an important aspect that got forgotten. 

And in the future, hopefully artificial intelligence could help us rather than manually correcting and fixing accessibility issues. Rather building them from scratch into the website, the texts, the documents and so on, so that this accessibility sort of fixing or catching up that we are doing for the last 25 years is at some point maybe stopping.

18:27 S7

Absolutely. And could you tell us about what are some of the challenges that people with blindness or low vision face in Europe, and how do you think that they differ to other regions like Australia, for example?

18:41 S5

Yeah, the latter part of the question, how they compare to your own context, I leave that judgment to you or the listeners of your program, of course. Because I don't know how Australia that well, but... in Europe, maybe the first thing to say is, of course, when we talk about Europe, we're quite still talking about... a diverse continent. So the reality in some countries may also differ from one country to another within Europe. So maybe that's the first thing to to say. And the same is actually true for the, let's say, strength of the blindness or partial sight movement in the various countries. 

Having said that, I would still say that one of the key challenges is in the area of employment. And I'm not saying that this is the top number one challenge only that somehow goes before the others. But it's clearly an important challenge, which probably illustrates underlying other challenges in other areas of work and somehow makes them makes them more visible. So in the area of employment, we can still see that even in countries that have quite progressive and generous social protection and employment and many other schemes favouring the recruitment, retention and so on, of blind and partially sighted people and of people with disabilities in general.

Even in those countries, the statistics, as much as we have them at least, are quite, let's say, poor or many blind and partially sighted people compared to the general population, because that's the point of comparison, obviously. So, this is this is a real issue still and, I think why I'm saying this here, and elaborating a bit more on this employment issue, is it does probably somehow culminate, if you like, other issues that blind, partially sighted people are facing in in wider society related to education, where of course, the transformation to the famous inclusive education is an is an ongoing struggle for many countries also in Europe. 

How to really practice this and make this really equal quality education and not just inclusive education by let's say, let's say bluntly, putting blind or partially sighted people in a, in a classroom, which is a different thing from quality education. It is certainly illustrates the challenge in employment. Also, issues related to still perception of what it means to be blind in wider society, so negative stereotypes, prejudices and negative perception overall when it comes to blindness being somehow, well, maybe that person is less productive, that maybe that person needs help all the time. All those kind of assumptions. There are still a lot of them around in wider society. 

And this, of course, just to say it nicely and friendly, does not help when it comes to being on a in a competitive situation, which the labor market always is. So I think this underlines some of the sort of key... challenges that I... see in in addition to, of course, the wide area of accessibility, which is sort of a the overall catch-all phrase. Of course, there's accessibility in many places that is still a real issue. Physical accessibility, but also nowadays, of course, a lot of... digital accessibility where there is both progress and sometimes still issues.

22:38 S3

Now, I've been over to Europe on a number of different occasions to various countries. And a comment that I've often made is if you want to be a blind person anywhere, if you had the choice, pick Spain because Foundation, Fondation RNC is, that looks like it's a pretty strong organisation and does seem to provide a lot of support. What would you say would probably be the country you wouldn't want to pick necessarily, if you were blind or visually impaired?

23:07 S5

Oh, that's that's a tough one... first of all, because I don't know all the countries myself, of course. And I don't want to blame a country as such. Uh. Of course, let me just have a quick thought about... I mean, there are negative examples in terms of I mean, I'm not saying this here too negatively because because of course, I'm living there and I like to live in France... but France is not a very well advanced country when it comes to accessibility in many places. And they, and also Belgium, where I used to live before, is not a very good example in terms of accessibility. 

And those are I'm deliberately saying this because these are the countries that I know fairly well because I've been living or I am living there for a long time, so I can judge a little bit this, this situation and why I would say they are problematic cases. They are actually these are countries who do not have the excuse of not being wealthy, because if I took a poorer country in Europe and there are, of course, as you know, also some poorer countries in, let's say, Southeast Europe - if you look at Albania or other countries, they do not have the same state of general development than France or Germany or Belgium or others would have. So the expectation maybe towards them would be lower from from the outset. 

But of course, in Belgium and France, for example, this is not the case. They have all the money and resources and policies and whatever they need, and they could have. And still the situation of in terms of accessibility and so on is actually quite... lagging behind.

24:47 S3

Before you touched on... various misconceptions and stereotypes that are held about blind people or people with low vision. In your opinion, what would you say, you know, the most damaging stereotypes or misconceptions are?

25:02 S5

I think that the biggest misconception that is around is that for many sighted people, if you ask them, which I haven't ever really done in a scientific way, but if you ask many sighted people What would be the worst thing that could happen? You sort of, life is sort of a sense that you lose. Probably most people would say the sight - and this tells you probably something because then from that starting point of being, Oh my goodness, if that happened to me, I would somehow not know what to do, how to deal with things, and is life even still worth or whatever? So it gets immediately into quite a dramatic, I think, more tragic situation and derived or based on that very negative. 

I think perception then comes all of this, oh my goodness, then people are in need for help all the time and all life situations. They cannot cook, they cannot do this. They cannot walk around easily... and so on. So, I think based on that... sort of perception that this being blind or losing part of your sight is... one of the worst things that could possibly happen to you, is then really based a lot of very false conceptions and assumptions. I think that's... the biggest that's the biggest one, actually. And we need to sort of fight this or at least through education, through awareness raising, and through many other things, at least put this into perspective and well, ideally at the end of the day, and turn it around.

26:37 S3

Do you think that there's any hope that, you know, society will come to understand that these are just misconceptions and stereotypes, or do you think they'll always exist?

26:47 S5

Well, it's probably probably misconceptions and stereotypes, not only towards blind or partially sighted people, but towards many other people. They... do exist. But at the same time, it's also our job and society's job in general, of course, to, as I said, turn these around and this takes time. This is not the revolution. This is probably an evolution as always. But there's also a lot of improvement. I mean, if we look back at how it was used, I don't know how this discussion would have been 30 years ago or 30 years in an historic kind of perspective in a short period of period of time, probably all these discussions wouldn't have taken place, actually. 

And if you look into the we talk about the talked about earlier, about the challenge also maybe to transform some of our systems to make them inclusive in the field of education, for example. I mean, 30 years ago, even the concept of inclusive education, uh, was not talked about, at least not in wider society. This was a niche issue that started to emerge here and there, but was not a generally, let's say, accepted concept and an aim of society. So there's a lot of progress as well. But of course, if you are blind or partially sighted, you are living your life now and today, and you want to see the change more concretely in your daily life now and today and not sort of wait for another 20, 30, 40 years to to sort of see more philosophical changes in attitudes. 

So that's always a bit, I think of... let's say discrepancy between what you can expect really, the change that you see immediately and sense immediately in your daily life, and what are sort of the broader societal changes that actually just do take time.

28:37 S3

How does the EBU ensure that European governments uphold accessibility standards?

28:44 S5

Well, one thing is... and I mean, our main work, of course, in the first place is through through the already mentioned advocacy... that we do, whether it's the European Union or through our members at the national level within the different European countries. So, it's on the one hand, of course, to lobby the the countries that they improve existing legislation or adopt new one and depending on the needs, of course. 

So this is... one... key approach to... that issue. The other thing then, of course, is always and that's where I think it, what's saying is, is ever growing the the importance of what I'm going to say now, but the implementation nevertheless there are nowadays also in Europe and I'm sure not only in Europe, more and more pieces of legislation which are at least good. There can always be better, they can always be improved, but they are at least good as a starting point in many places and areas of of life. But then there's often a gap when we look at the how these are implemented. 

So the our role and our job also internally, but also then of course going back to the governments and the parliaments and so on, is to make sure that we actually somehow we have a kind of a watchdog role when it comes to what our countries and the European Union itself actually doing in implementing the laws that they have given themselves. And this is bad and sometimes good examples that we bring back to them? Of course.

30:21 S3

Has there been any particular moments in the last five years where you've gone, Ah, this kind of makes it all worthwhile?

30:28 S5

Yes. I mean, there are always. I mean, the thing about European work and I think I mean, not only about the European work, but it's true that processes and at an EU level, and if we were working, which we are not at the UN, United Nations level, that would probably be even harder. You measure progress along a long time scale. You're not sort of going into Ah, now comes the great breakthrough immediately. This is just because countries have to agree amongst themselves with the parliament. There are so many actors involved, so that progress is, even at the legislative level, a bit slower than it can be in some, I don't know, at the very local level where you have immediately also an outcome that is tangible. 

I mean, you're lobbying for, I don't know, a traffic light to get across, an acoustic system to announce that it's red or green. And you will all be in for it locally. And it's finally implemented. Well, it's immediately visible that there's a result of your lobby work or advocacy work. And this is, of course a bit different when we look here at at EU level. Nevertheless, there are successes. And just last year there has been something that we have been calling for for ten years at least as European Blind Union, but also together with the European disability movement overall. And so that goes back before my time as, as director is the European disability card. 

So that at least would help when you're moving from one country to another within Europe to give you the same rights when traveling and having shorter stays in different countries. And this has finally now been adopted last year, after a long, long struggle, long controversies and so on and so forth, and will enter into force in the coming years because it needs to be now implemented by the various countries. So this illustrates, yes, this has been a real success, a real achievement. But again, there comes a but with it, the achievement at the legislative sort of the advocacy level which we have now and which we celebrate it as we want to do. It is, of course, still now the practice is still then still, let's say, 2 to 2 years down the line. 

So even there, you still have to be a bit patient before you really have the sort of card, in this case in your hand and can really feel the difference. I mean, almost physically when you're travelling.

32:57 S3

Lars, thank you for joining us on Studio 1. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

33:00 S5

Thank you for having me. Have a good day or evening.

33:03 S3

Thank you.

33:04 S5

Evening.

33:06 S2

So that's a wrap for this week. A big thank you to Lars.

33:08 S3

And of course, thank you for listening. You can find the podcast of this program, including some extra content on Apple, Spotify, Google or your favorite podcast platform. Next week...

33:21 S2

How have you coped in the world of love and romance?

33:25 S3

We ask a few friends what their experiences are when finding that significant other, or maybe just some company for the evening.

33:32 S2

Between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there is something we should be talking about, ou never know - your story and insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.

33:46 S3

You can reach us via email at studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org. Or of course, you can search for us on social media, whether that be Facebook, Instagram or just look for VA Radio Network. We want to hear from you.

34:06 S2

Bye for now.

34:07 S1

Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.