The Ministry of Equality is reminding the public of the continued availability at Leisure Cinemas of equipment which addresses the needs of the deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired. Inclusive Cinema Screening commenced in November 2015 as a result of collaboration between the Ministry of Equality, Ministry of Culture and Leisure Cinemas.

The Minister for Equality, Samantha Sacramento said  "The equipment available at Leisure Cinemas provides an invaluable service for people with disabilities to experience a more enjoyable and comfortable way of attending the cinema. There are available Assistance Headphones which provide descriptive audio tracks where a narrator describes what is happening on screen and there are also Entertainment Captioning Glasses and headphones which utilise specialised eyewear coupled with a receiver and enables people who are deaf and hard of hearing to view closed captioned text in their direct line of sight as if they were on screen.

The availability of this service and equipment forms part of a wider campaign by the Ministry of Equality to make Gibraltar a society which is more inclusive of people with disabilities. This particular instance shows the positive result that we have achieved with joint collaboration with the private sector as part of our Equality Means Business strategy which aims to make businesses and service providers more inclusive to people with disabilities. The awareness and training seminars that we have organised recently are also yielding very positive results within the private sector.

I am very pleased to be able to make such announcements and see how many local businesses are embracing the principles of inclusion and are working with my Ministry for guidance on how to achieve this”.