ONCE brings the world's largest blindness summit to Madrid

More than 3,500 participants with visual impairment will take part, either in person or virtually, in the World Blindness Summit Madrid 2021, which will be held in the Spanish capital from 28 to 30 June. This was announced by the president of the ONCE Social Group, Miguel Carballeda, who described the event as "the largest global summit on blindness in history". 

Postponed since last year because of the pandemic, this international assembly, in which 190 countries will participate, will bring together the concerns and worries of the 285 million blind people who exist throughout the world. As the organiser, ONCE believes that this event "continues to promote the image and brand of Spain around the world". The summit was entrusted to ONCE by the World Blind Union (WBU) and the International Blind People's Platform (ICEVI), which represent the two hundred organisations under whose umbrella are grouped the more than three hundred million members who suffer mainly from visual impairment, but who also include people with other disabilities, generally due to accidents or catastrophes. 

In his presentation at a breakfast meeting of Nueva Economía Forum, Miguel Carballeda pointed out that "the future of 285 million blind people around the world will be determined at this summit, and it will be done from Spain, from the country where ONCE was born and where it mainly works, and whose Social Group is already a reference model in the five continents. A model where blind people have earned the right to govern our future with hard work and effort". 

During the three days of the summit, the issues that most concern these people, both in the most advanced countries and in those where conditions are worse, will be addressed: from access to basic hygiene and health needs, to rights, to the incorporation of new technologies. 

The more than fifty debates planned, grouped under the slogan "The eyes of all", will focus especially on issues relating to education, since, as the President of ONCE himself revealed, more than half of the world's blind children do not have access to education. Consequently, training, employment, autonomy, technology, reading, culture and sport will be the main areas in which it is proposed to give a strong impetus at world level to accelerate the integration of blind people in all fields and sectors of life. 

The World Blindness Summit Madrid 2021 will have a large technological platform, which will provide access to at least ten simultaneous speakers in three languages and full interaction with another thousand attendees from all corners of the planet. In the days leading up to the summit, 17 events and 45 centralised conferences will also be held at the Madrid headquarters. 

It is worth remembering that the inclusion of people with visual impairment is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.