some achievements in the health domain

autism: Mobistar is committed
The Belgian subsidiary of Orange, Mobistar, takes part in the project "Participate!" with parents' associations of autistic children and university resource centres. Its objective: to establish a source of reference information on autism. In 2008, as part of this plan, the congress "Autism day after day" gathered more than 900 parents and 100 specialists around essential questions such as diagnosis or impacts on everyday life.


support for medical research
The Orange Foundation supports research consortiums which make progress in the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of autism. It finances grants and programs to help French research teams to contribute to research investigations on autism at an international level. In May, 2007 in particular, a team from the Pasteur Institute identified a new gene associated with autism. All these discoveries open the way to new treatments of young persons with autism.


a permanent commitment in favour of better access for those with sensory impairments to culture and its practice
The Orange Foundation supports projects intended to improve the quality of life of those with vision problems or who are completely blind, by facilitating their access to education, information and culture and by helping them become more independent. The Foundation helps, for examples, to improve accessibility to cultural sites and exhibitions: the new Tactile Gallery at the Louvre, sensory courses and adapted tools at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France,  at the Museum of Music, at the Tau Palace in Reims…
The Foundation promotes, moreover, several lyric theatres in order to make their programming accessible to the visually impaired thanks to an audio-description system which allows them to receive, during the show, information related to the show, the setting, the movements of the artists and to thus fully experience the opera (Opera of Bordeaux, Lille, Rouen, Opéra Comique in Paris …).


"In tandem for sight"
In June 2008, the bike race "In tandem for sight" rounded up 25 teams, each made up of a sighted driver and a visually impaired partner, for a 1000-kilometre race. Organised by Retina France with the support of the Orange Foundation, the purpose of the race was to increase public awareness, collect funds and to promote sports as a means of integration for the visually impaired.


leisure for the hearing-impaired
The Orange Foundation in Spain has supported two projects facilitating the access to culture for the hearing impaired. The first, the "signo-guide", which allows museum visits with a guide's audio comments, was inaugurated on May 26th, 2008 at the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida. The second, "Accessible Cinema ", aims to improve the cinema or DVD viewing conditions for the hearing or visually impaired, thanks for example to the audio-description.


blindness prevention in the Ivory Coast
From August 25th till October 18th, 2008, the Orange Ivory Coast Foundation and Akwaba Lion's Club have combined efforts in order to carry out a free screening test to prevent blindness in the Abidjan region. Approximately 7,000 persons were thus able to benefit from a screening of ocular diseases, and visually impaired persons were able to receive treatment.


future doctors trained in sign language
Facing deaf-mute patients, doctors may quickly have difficulty in communicating or in making themselves understood. In order to remedy this problem, the corporate Association of Medical students in Toulouse decided to organise trainings in sign language for future practitioners. This initiative, the objective of which is to allow deaf-mute patients to be treated without the need for an interpreter, was supported by the Orange Foundation.


“Ciné ma différence”: favouring access to movie theatres for young disabled persons
Supported by the Orange Foundation and the "Ciné ma différence" association, volunteers organise sessions opened to all, particularly to autistic and mentally handicapped persons, who often suffer from the lack of adapted facilities or people's stares. With simple development and organisation adjustments, these audiences can thus discover or rediscover the pleasures of the cinema. In 2009, 10 cinemas in different French cities participated in this project.


employees at the European Heritage Days
The Orange Foundation, in connection with its patronage in favour of the visually and hearing impaired, is associated with the National Monuments Centre as part of the European Heritage Days on September 19th and 20th, 2009, in which this year's topic was: "Heritage accessible to all". A hundred volunteers recruited within the France Telecom Orange group rallied during these two days. Their role? To welcome and accompany handicapped persons to the participating monuments, to places such as the Pantheon, the City of Carcassonne or the megaliths of Carnac. The purpose? To favour the access of all to culture within the European Heritage Days 2009 theme.