Portuguese government has presented 95 measures (or probably more suggestions or ideas) to improve accessibility, education, qualification, employment and habitation of the people with special necessities in Portugal. I was expecting such measures for quite some years, while living in Portugal, because having some very close friends between such people, i know from the direct impressions, about difficulties in such primitive things like getting out of the house.
Some of the people from the government saying that there are a lot of things, already in progress etc, but i have to say, that those people are living in their own world, having absolutely nothing to do with the reality. No access, no ramps, no chances to enter alone in 98% of the trains and about 70% of the metro stations – this is the current situation of the Portuguese accessibility.
A secretary of rehabilitation, Idália Moniz, is talking about 30% improvement in social conditions, like creation of the special houses for the people with deficiencies, but she most probably has never even read about statistics, which refers the number of about 160.000 people with motor disabilities – imagine biggest portuguese football stadium X 3 full of the people, and there is no way to improve their quality of life by constructing 2 or 3 buildings with each having something like 50 flats. She has referred that the government is planning to build around 20 buildings in the next 3 years, in which they are hoping to help about 800 people, but being realistic i would be more then happy even if it would be just a half.
In any case, it is a very important step which was really missing in Portugal and i hope that in the next years thing will finally get better. =O)