District Administrator Allgaier welcomed the 70 or so participants who had come to the event and the 40 people who followed the event online. "Inclusion is what we make of it!", he quoted Raul Krauthausen, an activist for inclusion and accessibility. The district organizes the annual inclusion conferences in order to promote the topic of inclusion in broad areas of society. The aim is to further promote inclusion in the district in order to pave the way for greater participation for people with disabilities. It is also important for digital participation to take people with disabilities and special needs into account. Since this year, the district's website has offered the opportunity to find out about social assistance, health and coronavirus support in plain language. The read-aloud function and the option to increase the contrast make the entire website accessible.
Dr. Jan-René Schluchter from the Ludwigsburg University of Education, one of the few nationwide experts on the subject of inclusive media education, spoke about the potential of digital media for participation and inclusion. However, he warned against relying solely on this. Ferdinand Schäffler, Head of Division at Habila GmbH, presented the new QuarTeTT project: The aim is to create technical solutions for more participation in the neighborhood through video-based tutorials. Bärbel Finkbeiner from Stadt-jugendring Esslingen presented the ZoomTreff of the inclusive group for young people "MiMaMo". During the pandemic, 13 to 18 young people met for up to three hours a week. Bernhard Spelten and Christoph Wiche from Düsseldorf joined the conference and reported on the PIKSL labs. These are centrally located in the cities. People with technical questions about Internet or media use are supported by the PIKSL Lab team. The special feature: People with and without disabilities work together here as experts.
In the concluding round of talks, the mayor of Hagnau, Volker Frede, presented how his Lake Constance community places great importance on accessibility. This is reflected, among other things, in the municipality's clear and well-structured homepage, which even offers a menu item "Accessible in Hagnau". Utz Mörbe from the Ludwigsburg Inclusive District Advisory Board praised this and called for people with disabilities, but also senior citizens, for example, to be included in the digital development from the outset. He described it as his greatest success that the Participation Advisory Council in the Böblingen district, in which he is also involved, had succeeded in appointing a full-time representative for the disabled. This was welcomed by Dr. Eckart Bohn, the district's honorary representative for the disabled. This is important given the wealth of issues. One focus of his work is the district-wide implementation of barrier-free bus stops. It is important to consider accessibility at all levels, including digitalization. Edgar Lichtner reported that Scala Kultur Live GmbH had seized the lockdown as an opportunity to open up new formats with digital events. The first event in this context was the Long Night of Inclusion in April this year. Following this, there were even weekly events on the topic of "inclusion" on Scala TV until the summer break. Digital formats are a great opportunity to tap into new target groups and enable digital participation. Presenter Felix Bernhard, who describes his wheelchair as his personal coach, skillfully guided the audience through the event.
