LÍS: Students’ with disabilities access to information facilitated through new website
Finding information regarding educational assistance for students with disabilities is not easy in Iceland. This is what an exchange student found out, after comparing the information available on Danish university websites with those in Iceland.
The story inspired an interdisciplinary team consisting of two university students from the students’ equality committee at the University of Iceland, a student from the University of Reykjavík and their mentor to create a website, named “Réttinda-Ronja”. “Réttinda” is the Icelandic word for “rights” and Ronja is a name which references Astrid Lindgren’s story about Ronja Rövardotter who brought two rival robber clans together with her open mindedness and her strong spirit for her cause.
“Réttinda-Ronja” means “for students, created by students”. The project team started by interviewing 17 students and concluded that access to information on educational assistance rights was not sufficient at the University of Iceland. All of the interviewees thought that the website “Réttinda-Ronja” would help them immensely.
The site was created to help university students in discovering and recognising their legal rights and to explain what educational assistance each student has the right to receive. Its objective is to serve as an easily accessible and growing database, featuring a comment-based system where the students themselves can contribute and also give students with disabilities a platform where they can interact with each other and share information.
The website will soon be published and is set to include all of the Icelandic universities. In the hope of developing a collaborative project, students’ representatives from all of the universities were contacted and encouraged to participate.
LIS encourages other universities and those who are interested in this subject to contact them via email for a possible collaboration. Also, for any questions or comments feel free to write to lis@haskolanemar.is.
