English

Visually Handicapped Youth Stockholm (Unga Synskadade Stockholm, USS) is one of eight districts within the Swedish National Organization for Visually Handicapped Youth (US).

The US is a politically and religiously independent association for, and also consisting of, visually handicapped young people between ages 12-30.

The purpose of the association is to monitor our situation in the society and give us the opportunity to get together and exchange experiences. We are more than happy to cooperate with other organizations in factual matters.

Within the USS we work, among other things, with helping visually handicapped people to travel freely by public transportation such as trains, subway and bus. We also work towards having a smoothly functioning mobility service and having means of assistance available to make our chores easier.

Examples of means of assistance would be computers, white sticks, tape recorders, special glasses and braille machines. We also wish that as much information as possible, for example books, magazines and restaurant menus, shall be available in braille, large-type, cassette and electronic versions.

We also work with having films, theatrical shows and sports events visually interpreted.

Another way of acquiring information is by using computers and the Internet. Therefore we work as well on making computer programs and adjustments access-ible.

To rouse opinion among politicians and the public we work in many different ways, for instance by calling on politicians, writing letters to the press, organizing demos and performing direct actions. We also have a web site on the Internet where we can reach out with information about our association, the ideology and our activities.

Apart from interest politics we arrange courses and days devoted to a particular theme where we deal with certain issues of interest, issues that are of advantage to society, or whatever else our members might be interested in. We also arrange various camps and provide our members with the opportunity to try certain activi-ties, such as horse riding, car driving and subway train driving. We do this to attract new members to the organization and give them the chance to try new exciting things.

It is very important that the USS is there when it comes to monitoring issues that concern us visually handicapped and also when we have to be given the chance to try new things and thereby strengthen our self-esteem.

For more information, get in touch with the USS. Please write in Swedish or English.

USS
Katrinebergsvägen 6
117 43 Stockholm
Sweden

Phone: +46 (0)8 644 57 58
E-mail: kansli@usstockholm.se
Web: http://www.usstockholm.se