Of 80 institutions in Veles, only 20 said whether they are accessible to people with disabilities: the silence of the other 60 is an answer

Eighty public and state institutions in Veles were asked a simple question: can a person in a wheelchair, a blind or a deaf person walk in on their own and get their business done? Twenty replied. From the other 60 - silence.

The questionnaire is part of the "Veles - A Right for Everyone" project by the Impact Net Foundation, funded by EU funds, in which secondary-school students from four Veles schools took part. After six months of work, an accessibility register was created along with a module in the Green Map mobile app. Institutions are marked like a traffic light: red means inaccessible, yellow partly accessible, green fully accessible. There is also a blue label, for those that meet all six modules of the questionnaire - not only for wheelchair users, but also for people with impaired sight and hearing.

The numbers from the institutions that did reply are nothing to boast about. 57 percent have no lift, even though their services are on upper floors. 42.9 percent have no accessible toilet. 86 percent have no space for breastfeeding or changing babies, and 72 percent have no trained staff who can help a visually impaired person. None has information in Braille, or a defibrillator. And 43 percent haven't even set aside a budget to improve accessibility, 58 percent not even a plan.

And these are the ones that at least had the will to reply. Are the sixty that stayed silent better or worse? It's hard to believe an institution with a ramp, a lift and an accessible toilet would miss the chance to show off. On top of that, the institutions graded themselves - the data is now being checked to see whether the situation on paper matches reality.

Green labels went to the Vasil Glavinov primary school together with the grammar school and the chemistry school, which share one building, then the health centre, the hospital, the Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the railway station and the Basic Court. The State Attorney's Office and the Public Prosecutor's Office are not on that list. And the only traffic lights in Veles have no audio signals.

According to data presented by project manager Stefče Dečev, Macedonia has 94,800 people with some form of disability, 2,500 with impaired sight or blindness and more than six thousand with impaired hearing. Add the families who help them and the number reaches 200,000 citizens. That many people check every day whether they will be able to get into an institution they pay for with their taxes. Institutions that won't even answer a questionnaire - how do they answer the person in a wheelchair standing at the bottom of the stairs?