Aurelian Mohan delivered a speech at the public debate entitled “Iasi – a city with a high level of accessibility” / Aurelian Mohan a ținut un discurs la Iași

The United Nations Youth Delegate of Romania, Aurelian D. Mohan, was invited by several youth NGOs based in Iași to advocate for disable youth at a very important local debate about the rights of disabled young people.

The public debate entitled “Iasi – a city with a high level of accessibility” took place on February 5, in Iași, and its main aim was to persuade local authorities to extend the public funding related to infrastructure development that offers higher degrees of accessibility for disabled people.

Nowadays, the city of Iași has only a few facilities suitable for this demographic; id est, not even the city hall has ramps or special access points that can allow disable people to easily enter or navigate the building. In addition, public transport operators are not trained to offer assistance to disable people and, thus, making its special vehicles worthless.

In this context, Aurelian spoke about the necessity to embrace the “flat city” concept, to revise the local budget with the purpose of creating more opportunities for disabled people, and to retrofit official buildings, including schools and universities, in order to become accessible. Moreover, the UN Youth Delegate argued that a smart strategy can transform Iași, in a couple of years, into a friendly municipality comparable to Berlin or New York in terms of accessibility.

Aurelian described the current situation as unacceptable; people are desperate, but authorities continue to ignore them and the national law. Not only that they refuse to enact the law, but they also not take into consideration the rights of disabled people.