We were delighted to host Hungarian “blind” professional practitioners at the Bartimeus Centre on 3-4 March 2022. During their stay, they helped us with educational – technical, accessibility and operational advice from the Transylvanian school for the blind. Setting up an institution such as a boarding school for visually impaired children requires a lot of attention, meticulous planning, knowledge and consideration of the laws and regulations that apply to special institutions. The visit of our friends was very fruitful, as they provided us with practical advice from decades of experience.

Since the rehabilitation of the Rákóczi Road in Székelyudvarhely will start this year, we had the opportunity to meet with Mr Attila Jakab from the local Mayor’s Office and the engineers of the company that is carrying out the rehabilitation of the Rákóczi Road. The reconstruction will take into account the fact that blind children and adults will soon be travelling in the area. The rehabilitation environmental design engineer has provided us with practical (and in most cases cheap), easy-to-implement design and construction advice that will make blind people’s mobility in Székelyudvarhely much safer and easier.

At the invitation of Attila Jakab, we visited the recently installed guide rail for the blind at the Székelyudvarhely Mayor’s Office. And, of course, we couldn’t miss the visit to the justly famous and beautiful St. Stephen’s Hall.

Thank you to Mr Attila Jakab and the architects for a constructive meeting. And of course we are sincerely grateful to the Hungarian experts for their helpful and practical advices: Orsolya Németh, professional manager of MVGYOSZ (Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted), Eva Szemerei, head of the Methodological Centre of the Primary School for the Blind in Budapest, Gyöngyvér Mikola, the professional head of the Sightedness Rehabilitation Centre run by the Buda Neighbourhood Association for the Visually Impaired,      Bernadett Babits, rehabilitation environmental engineer of the MVGYOSZ and Attila Ollé, MVGYOSZ international relations officer. We are grateful to have such friends!