Challenges and Gaps in Promoting Inclusive Spaces: A Study Based on Interviews

This study focuses on promoting inclusive spaces specifically designed to support People with Disabilities (PwD). These spaces play a crucial role in providing services and digital resources that enable these people to increase their autonomy, independence, accessibility, communication, and quality of life. The overall impact of these spaces depends largely on proper dissemination. It is therefore of the highest importance to design and implement effective promotion strategies to ensure that PwD are aware of the existence of these spaces and have the necessary information to access them. In this qualitative study 16 interviews with representatives of different disability-inclusive spaces in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, namely Angola, Brazil, and Portugal are analyzed. The main objective was to identifying and understanding the gaps and challenges in promoting inclusive spaces. The study’s findings reveal that participants recognize the importance of implementing communication strategies, but various obstacles often limit their implementation. These challenges include lack of strategic planning, limited time and financial resources, operational capacity constraints, reluctance to join communication channels, and lack of communication skills. Recognizing these challenges and gaps enables the implementation of significant improvements in the promotion of inclusive spaces and empowers teams in these and other types of spaces and communities. This will make it possible to adapt communication strategies informally, optimizing their dissemination process and effectively promoting inclusion.