The 2nd Pan-European Workshop/User Forum and the 1st International ÆGIS Conference entitled "Access for All in the desktop, web and mobile field: an end-user and developer perspective" will take place in Seville, Spain on 6 and 7-8 October 2010 respectively. All events are organised by the ÆGIS IP initiative (Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards - [partially funded under FP7 (Theme: ICT‐2007.7.1; ICT & Ageing).

The European Commission has allocated funding for ANED (Academic Network of European Disability Experts) for 4 years. During the third year (2010), the Network does continue working on the themes Law and policy (updating and detailing the mapping of EU law and policy instruments), Comparative data (providing comparative data on a number of quantitative implementation indicators), Employment (reviewing the 2010 National Reform Programmes for Growth and Jobs) and Social Protection / Social Inclusion (reviewing the 2010 National Strategy Reports for Social Protection and Social Inclusion).

On Wednesday 22 April 2009, a milestone was passed: diplomas were awarded to Belgium’s first disability case managers.

Also interested what the United Nations Human Rights Treaties reservations, declarations, objections and derogations are related to disability?

The federal government employs nearly 3 percent of the country's disabled workers, according to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The USA government's first detailed look at disabled workers' employment shows they are far more likely than the overall work force to be older, working part-time or jobless.

Controls Unit / Internal Audit Expert

On 29 October 2009 the Commission sent reasoned opinions to Germany and Italy for incorrectly implementing EU rules prohibiting discrimination based on religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in employment and occupation.

On 26-27 October, the High Level Conference on Labour Market Inclusion in Stockholm discussed ways of increasing labour force participation and Member States representatives shared experiences on how to overcome obstacles to this.

Within the framework of the project ‘Learning Lab for Integration’ financed under the Lifelong learning Grundvig programme, a database has been created to provide good practice examples on how people with disabilities can be helped to return to the labour market, integrate society, learn and acquire new skills.

You can now download the enhanced Code of Practice (CoP) for Mentoring in English, Bulgarian, Dutch and Turkish. This CoP (the result of the Validating Mentoring 2 project) is mainly addressed to managers and developers of mentoring programmes.

The Social Protection Committee of the European Commission has issued a new report on the social dimension of the growth and jobs strategy, which is meant to be a contribution of the EU’s post-2010 Lisbon strategy. This report highlights the progress of the social protection systems over the past decades and their important role in minimizing the social impact of the crisis.

Marie Curie Association held its conference entitled “Creativity and Innovative Solutions in Training of People with Disabilities” on 11 September 2009 in Sofia city. Over 80 participants came in Sofia Press conference hall and the representatives of Marie Curie Association acquainted them with different methods of accessible training. The results of 8 international projects funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme were presented. The conference was opened by Mariya Goranova-Valkova, an executive director of the association organizing the event. She greeted the participants linking the theme of the present conference and the European Year of Creativity and Innovation which 2009 is according to the calendar of the European Commission. Afterwards presentations with focus on the products and the results of the 8 projects were delivered.

The European Parliament offers traineeship opportunities for persons with disabilities. The 7th traineeship period will start on 1 March 2010 for 6 months and the application period has just started.

Shell Bulgaria has implemented a wide range of Shell Group policies, practices, action plans and training material to help our team members in overcoming bias and minimizing prejudice based on physical ability, culture, nationality, gender, ethnic background, sexual orientation, political views, etc. We are working in the field of ‘Diversity & Inclusion’, raising our awareness and overall experience with diversity.