The Association of Barrier-Free Access (Engelsiz Erişim Derneği) is based in Istanbul and focuses primarily on blindness and intersecting areas of disability. The organisation works from the belief that accessible living is a fundamental human right, aiming to remove barriers faced by people with disabilities and promote equal participation in society.
Through the Digital Transformation Fund, delivered in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Support Foundation for Civil Society (Sivil Toplum için Destek Vakfı), the Association is receiving capacity-building support in 2025. Through this grant, the organisation will make its website fully accessible for blind users, strengthen its advocacy capacity, and develop an AI-powered chatbot that provides access to disability legislation and related resources.
We spoke with the Association about its mission, the barriers blind people face in digital spaces, its plans under the grant, and the role of artificial intelligence in improving access to information and services.
How was the Association of Barrier-Free Access founded, and what is your mission?
The Association of Barrier-Free Access was founded by young blind activists who felt that young disabled people were not meaningfully included in decision-making processes within existing disability organisations. It began as the Group of Barrier-Free Access in 2005 and became a formal association in 2011.
We follow a rights-based approach based on the social model of disability and reject charity-based or segregating perspectives. As most of our members are blind, our work focuses primarily on blindness and related disability issues.
Our mission is to ensure that disability is understood as part of human diversity rather than a deficit, and to remove barriers to equal participation in society. We advocate for equal, accessible and barrier-free living as a fundamental human right.
Our work is guided by the “3B principle”: independence through the white cane, access to information through Braille, and access to services through information technologies.
We advocate for greater accessibility in public transport, including audible stop announcements, Braille signage and accessibility testing of transport applications. We have also worked on accessible elections, including the development of accessible voting templates that were later implemented by the Supreme Election Council (YSK).
In addition, we organise initiatives such as the White Cane and Accessibility Festival, the Selen Özel Knowledge Competition and the Kemal Özceyhan Seminars, as well as training programmes under our Inclusive Education Project. We also work on web accessibility, audio description and tactile learning, and have been publishing EEEH Magazine since 2014.
Through our work, we aim to ensure equal access for everyone in all areas of life.
What are the main barriers blind people face in digital spaces, and how do you address them?
Digital technologies and AI tools have significantly improved access to information and independence for blind people. However, accessibility is still often overlooked during design and development, creating barriers that could easily be avoided.
Common barriers include images without alternative text, unlabelled elements, navigation based only on visual cues, components that cannot be accessed via keyboard, use of colour alone to convey meaning, inconsistent heading structures, and form fields without clear labels.
We work to remove these barriers and promote equal digital access for all. Our activities include:
- Providing accessibility consultancy to help organisations make their websites, applications and digital content accessible
- Advocating for stronger and more effective legal requirements on digital accessibility
- Producing guidelines, reports and training on audio description, accessible communication and content creation
- Running awareness campaigns such as #KörlerBuradaGörseliAçıkla to encourage more inclusive digital communication
The AI era offers new opportunities to develop tools that increase accessibility and independence for blind people.
How do you assess the impact of AI-powered chatbots?
We believe AI-powered chatbots can help blind people access information more quickly, directly and independently. They can describe images, read text from visual content, guide users through digital processes and make complex legal information easier to understand.
Early developments also show that AI tools can help people navigate applications and systems that were not originally designed with accessibility in mind. This creates significant opportunities to bridge accessibility gaps in existing digital services.
Overall, we see artificial intelligence as a powerful tool for improving accessibility and supporting independent living.
We aim to integrate accessibility not only into content but also into our institutional infrastructure, ensuring that digital transformation is inclusive.
Can you tell us about the project implemented with support from our Digital Transformation Fund?
Through this digital capacity-building support, we aimed to strengthen our accessibility advocacy and make our rights-based work in the digital sphere more visible, effective and sustainable. Key activities include:
- Redesigning our website to be fully accessible for both users and administrators
- Developing a Guide to Building Accessible Websites to support organisations producing digital content
- Creating an AI-powered chatbot to improve access to disability legislation and information
- Strengthening our internal digital systems and organisational efficiency
Overall, we aimed to embed accessibility not only in our content but also across our institutional infrastructure and working practices, helping to ensure an inclusive digital transformation.
How would you describe your experience and impact?
“Travelling while constantly worrying about missing my stop is exhausting. But when I use buses with audible stop announcements, I feel at ease knowing where I need to get off.”
“I once could not vote because I was not given an accessible voting template, even though I wanted to vote privately. In the next election, with the accessible voting template developed through the Association’s advocacy work, I was able to vote independently for the first time. It was not just a template; it was the ability to exercise my right freely.”
“Attending the White Cane and Accessibility Festival showed me that accessibility can be achieved in many different ways, and that even simple solutions can make a significant difference.”
These experiences show that accessibility is not only a technical issue but also a matter of dignity, independence and equal participation.
We see disability as a social issue, which means lasting solutions require collective social change. Supporting our work is not only an act of solidarity with people with disabilities, but also a contribution to a more equal and inclusive society.
