Activities of EGDF and Associates

Jane Richards chaired a panel about the activities of EGDF and its associated organisations. She reported on EGDF’s work since the last conference in Tallinn, Estonia in 2019. Jane took up her role in September 2020 following the retirement of Judith Jones. Events had been curtailed because of Covid and the conference was postponed until it could be a face-to-face meeting because direct contacts amongst delegates were so vital. EGDF had continued to work for its members and with its associates:

• CEN, the European standards organisation
• ANEC, the voice of consumers for European standards
• EDF, the European Disability Forum
• IGDF, the International Guide Dog Federation
• EBU, the European Blind Union
• ADEu, Assistance Dogs Europe and its public access committee

EGDF’s 24-hour help line for access problems had been quiet during lockdown but had become busy again, especially because airline rules for guide dogs were not clear.

Marijan Sesar, Assistance Dogs Europe board member from Croatia spoke about the work of ADEu. As a regional division of Assistance Dogs International, ADI, they had 46 members in 18 European countries. He reported that 49% of their members’ dogs were guide dogs, 10% were hearing dogs and 41% other type of assistance dogs. Their members had around 12,000 volunteers, 2,000 full-time staff and 900 part-time. A large part of their recent work was issuing a digital ID for ADEu members. The memorandum of understanding with EGDF was signed in 2014 and was valued because of their many mutual interests.

Rodrigo Santos spoke as a European Blind Union board member and as a guide dog user, whose dog was born in France and trained in Portugal. EBU had 41 member countries and was one of six regional organisations of the World Blind Union. EBU’s work included lobbying the European Parliament, projects with the
European Commission, monitoring implementation of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). They campaigned for accessible films, the right to produce accessible copies of printed literature for the blind without copyright restrictions, air travel rights for the blind and were working with EGDF and ANEC and to make lifts more accessible.

David Adams and Jane Richards spoke about the European Disability Forum. They said this European Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) represented 100 million disabled people, was based in Brussels and mainly funded by the European Commission. EDF’S by-word was “Nothing about us without us”.

EDF members were national disability organisations or European-wide disabilityspecific organisations. EGDF’s membership was a special category because it represented both disabled persons organisations (guide dog user organisations) and service providers (guide dog schools). EGDF was the only assistance dog organisation qualified to be a member of EDF.

EDF was 25 years old and had grown rapidly in staff size and influence in the past 10 years; they were influential with all the European institutions -- a great ally and resource for EGDF.