Full Inclusion Madrid awards Fundéu BBVA for its collaboration in the first easy-to-read online dictionary
The Español Urgente Foundation (Fundéu BBVA) has won one of the Madrid 2016 Full Inclusion Awards for its contribution to a unique project: the first online dictionary of terms defined in simple text, aimed at people with intellectual disabilities or reading difficulties.
The team responsible for this project has managed to put itself in the place of those who, often, cannot easily access information. This dictionary makes it easier for them to read with terms translated into a much more reader-friendly language. An example is found in the definition of a rarely used term such as “escrutinio” that, according to the RAE, is the “knowledge and counting of votes in elections or another similar act” and here becomes “counting votes in an election”.
A joint project
It has not been an easy road. In the work process, up to five different professionals were involved to adapt and validate each term: easy reading writers, easy reading validators and supporting images and linguists, who have used a workflow and networking software management tool. This team has had the collaboration of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities who have been essential throughout the process as they have been responsible for approving the texts.
The result of this work is an accessible website that will be available between December 2016 and March 2017 and in which the definitions of complex, polysemic or rarely-used terms appear. This is a living project, which will continue to develop and feed the work performed by Full Inclusion Madrid to adapt and validate texts by following the European standards proposed by Inclusion Europe.
The initiative is the result of the collaboration between Fundéu BBVA, Full Inclusion Madrid, the Repsol Foundation and the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality. In this case, Fundéu BBVA has collaborated with expert lexicographers to ensure the correct use of words and explanatory texts. Thanks to the joint work of the entities involved in this project, a definition such as “trivial”, which appears in the common dictionary as “not being out of the ordinary and common, has no significance and novelty” becomes: “not very important”.
Full Inclusion Madrid is the Madrid Federation of Organizations of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. It currently works to defend the rights of beneficiaries from 107 organizations, associations and foundations.