In June, Ulla Bohman gave a presentation in Ljubljana. It was the final activity for the Erasmus project Train2Validate. The project has been investigating what competences facilitators and validators of Easy Language need to have. Facilitators being the ones writing or adapting the information into Easy Language. The validators are the ones testing the text and gives approval to it being easy to read and understand.
The project has lifted up the importance of the involvement of the target group of Easy Language in the process of making accessible information, news and literature. Persons with intellectual disabilities have been involved in the project and proved their skills as validators. Some of them see the potential to be validators as a profession.
Ulla’s presentation was about the fact that the Easy Language product very seldomly is owned by the facilitator nor the validator. It is very often a third person involved – being the officer at a public entity, a NGO or a private company. These officers very seldom have enough knowledge about accessible information. Therefor, the person getting the assignment of producing the Easy Language material must stress she should be part of the entire process. The target group of the information must be able to find, read and understand the information. Too many times excellent Easy Language information has been published on the web, very difficult to find in the web structure. Or, the information has been given a very inaccessible layout.
More about the Train2Validate project is to be found here:
Video interview courtesy of Drago Brumen, Zavod Risa