Vía Célere receives the Cinco Días Awards for the Best CSR Innovative Business Initiative

In the category of corporate social responsibility, the award, in this edition, was for Vía Célere for its Espacio Fácil project, launched in February this year and which can be placed in the context of next December 4, the deadline set in Spanish legislation for when residential buildings in Spain have to make reasonable accessibility adjustments. The promoters of this initiative assure that while physical accessibility has been widely disseminated and contained in the regulations, cognitive accessibility has not.

In fact, current legislation does not cover the needs of people with intellectual disabilities who depend on others and suffer moments of disorientation in the spaces of their daily lives, with an important factor of insecurity in emergency situations. With this preamble, Via Célere, through its Foundation, together with Afanías, the Association for the Easy Understanding of Environments and Buildings, the CSU, La Salle and other agents in the construction sector, has set up Espacio Fácil, in order to contribute to the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and to influence the quality of life of all, through the comprehensible and accessible design of the habitat. It is the first centre to investigate, evaluate, design and adapt buildings and transform them into understandable and accessible spaces. In this way, it establishes a pioneering model in which people with intellectual disabilities participate as cognitive evaluators of environments and buildings.

To date, the impact of Espacio Fácil has been translated into pioneering research into cognitive building accessibility that will allow the development of the first indicators to assess cognitive accessibility. In addition, 20 university students and five architects, along with 27 young people with intellectual disabilities, have been trained as evaluators in this matter and have carried out diagnoses in four buildings, such as the University of La Salle, CEPA Canillejas, CEPA Pozuelo and the Afanías Canillejas centre.