Accessibility Statement

"bee Charity" Verein (“BeeCharity”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is a Swiss association (Verein) with its seat in Dübendorf, Canton of Zurich, registered in the Commercial Register Office of the Canton of Zurich under UID CHE-457.076.818. We believe that everyone should be able to learn about our work, support our mission, and get in touch with us, regardless of ability, and we are committed to making our website and digital communications as accessible and inclusive as we can.

Accessibility is not an afterthought for us; it flows directly from our values. An organisation dedicated to environmental and humanitarian good cannot in good conscience exclude people from participating because of the way its website is built. We therefore aim to remove barriers for people who are blind or have low vision, who are deaf or hard of hearing, who have motor or dexterity impairments, who have cognitive or learning differences, or who rely on assistive technologies to browse the web.

This Accessibility Statement explains the standard we are working towards, what we have done to make our website accessible, the assistive technologies we support, the limitations we are honest about, and how you can give us feedback or request information in an alternative format. It has been formally adopted by the board, published in the spirit of transparency, and reflects our genuine commitment as a small, largely volunteer-run organisation to keep improving.

We aim to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 at Level AA, the internationally recognised standard for web accessibility published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). WCAG 2.2 AA is the benchmark used across Europe and referenced by the European Accessibility Act and by Swiss accessibility good practice, and it is the target we hold our website to.

The WCAG standard is built around four principles: that content must be perceivable (people must be able to perceive the information presented), operable (people must be able to operate the interface), understandable (both the content and the operation must be understandable), and robust (content must work reliably with a wide range of user agents and assistive technologies). We use these principles to guide the way we design, write and build our website.

WCAG 2.2 adds requirements on top of earlier versions — for example ensuring that interactive elements are not hidden by other content when they receive focus, that dragging movements have a simpler alternative, that the target size of controls is adequate, and that people are not forced to re-enter information they have already provided. We take these newer criteria into account in our work. Where we describe our website as aiming for WCAG 2.2 AA, we are describing a goal we actively pursue and measure ourselves against, rather than claiming perfect, independently certified conformance, which as a small organisation we are still working towards.

We have built a number of accessibility features into our website and aim to apply them consistently across our pages. These include:

We do not use content that flashes in a way likely to cause seizures, and we avoid movement or automatic changes that cannot be paused or that could distract or disorient. Where we use colour to convey meaning, we aim to provide an additional non-colour cue as well.

• Semantic, structured HTML with meaningful headings, landmarks and lists, so that the content has a logical order and can be navigated by structure.
• Text alternatives (alt text) for meaningful images, and appropriate handling of decorative images so they do not clutter the experience for screen-reader users.
• Sufficient colour contrast between text and background, chosen to meet the WCAG AA contrast ratios, so that text remains legible for people with low vision.
• A layout that reflows and remains usable when text is enlarged or the browser is zoomed, and that adapts to different screen sizes and mobile devices.
• Visible keyboard focus indicators and a logical focus order, so that people who navigate without a mouse can see where they are.
• Full keyboard operability of interactive elements such as links, buttons and menus, without requiring a mouse or precise pointer control.
• Clear, descriptive link text and labels, and form fields with associated labels and helpful error messages.
• Adequately sized touch and click targets, and avoidance of interactions that rely solely on complex gestures or precise timing.
• Plain, readable language wherever possible, with a consistent and predictable navigation structure.

We want our website to work well with the assistive technologies that people rely on to access the web, and we design and test with these tools in mind. Our aim is that the website should be operable and understandable whether someone is using a screen reader, magnification, speech input, or keyboard-only navigation.

The assistive technologies and approaches we seek to support include screen readers such as NVDA and JAWS on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS and iOS; screen magnification and browser zoom for people with low vision; operating-system and browser accessibility settings such as increased text size, high-contrast modes and reduced-motion preferences; speech-recognition and voice-control software; and navigation using only a keyboard or a switch device rather than a mouse.

Because assistive technologies and browsers are updated frequently and behave differently in combination, we cannot guarantee a flawless experience with every possible configuration, particularly older or less common tools. However, we are committed to supporting current versions of the mainstream assistive technologies and popular browsers, and where we become aware that a particular combination does not work as it should, we will treat that as something to investigate and fix.

In the spirit of honesty and transparency, we want to be open about the fact that our website may not yet be perfectly accessible in every respect. We are a young, small and largely volunteer-run association, our website continues to evolve, and we have not yet completed a full independent accessibility audit. We would rather acknowledge this candidly than overstate our position.

Areas where limitations may currently exist include: some images or media that may not yet have complete or ideal text alternatives or captions; documents provided for download (such as PDFs) that may not be fully tagged for accessibility; third-party or embedded content — for example a payment or donation form, a map, or a social-media embed — whose accessibility is partly outside our direct control; and newer WCAG 2.2 criteria that we may still be in the process of fully implementing across every page. Where content has been added over time by different contributors, standards may also not yet be applied entirely consistently.

We regard these as limitations to be reduced over time, not a fixed state of affairs. If you encounter a barrier that prevents you from using our website or accessing information, please tell us using the feedback process below: we will do our best to help you directly and to fix the underlying problem. Reporting a limitation genuinely helps us, and we are grateful to anyone who takes the time to do so.

Your feedback is one of the most valuable ways we can identify and remove accessibility barriers, and we welcome it warmly. If you have difficulty using any part of our website, if something does not work with your assistive technology, or if you simply have a suggestion for how we could make things easier, we would very much like to hear from you.

You can contact us about accessibility by email at beecharity1@gmail.com. When you get in touch, it helps us to know the web address (URL) of the page where you experienced the problem, a short description of what went wrong or what you were trying to do, and, if you are comfortable sharing it, the browser, device and any assistive technology you were using. This information helps us reproduce and fix the issue, but please do not feel obliged to provide technical detail — a simple description of the problem is enough.

We aim to acknowledge accessibility feedback promptly and to respond helpfully, and we will always try to provide the information or assistance you need in the meantime, even while we work on a longer-term fix. If you are not satisfied with how we have responded to an accessibility concern, you can raise it through our Complaints Policy, and we will treat it seriously and fairly.

We recognise that, despite our best efforts, some people may still find it easier to receive information in a different way, and we are committed to providing the content of our website and communications in alternative formats on request wherever we reasonably can.

Depending on your needs, we can, for example, provide information by email in plain text, supply a document in a more accessible format, talk something through with you directly, or offer information in large print. If a particular format would help you engage with our work — whether you are a donor, a volunteer, a beneficiary or a member of the public — please just ask, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

To request information in an alternative format, please contact us at beecharity1@gmail.com, describing what you need and the format that would work best for you. As a small organisation our resources are limited, so some formats may take us a little time to prepare or may not be possible in every case, but we will always try to find a reasonable way to give you access to the information, and we will let you know honestly what we can do.

Accessibility is a continuing journey rather than a one-off task, and we are committed to improving the accessibility of our website and digital communications over time. We treat accessibility as part of how we build and maintain our website, not as a separate project to be done once and forgotten.

In practice, this means we aim to consider accessibility when we design new pages or features, to write content in clear language and structure it properly, to provide text alternatives and captions as we add images and media, and to give preference to accessible approaches when we choose third-party tools such as donation or form providers. As we learn — from feedback, from testing, and from our own growing understanding — we make incremental improvements and revisit areas identified as limitations.

As BeeCharity grows and our resources allow, we intend to strengthen this further, for example through more systematic testing with assistive technologies and, in time, an independent accessibility review against WCAG 2.2 AA. We would rather make steady, genuine progress and be honest about where we are than make claims we cannot yet fully support, and we welcome the input of our community in helping us prioritise the improvements that matter most.

To make sure our commitment to accessibility is real and not merely aspirational, we monitor how well our website meets the standard we have set ourselves. Monitoring helps us catch problems, track our progress against WCAG 2.2 AA, and decide where to focus our limited resources for the greatest benefit.

Our monitoring includes reviewing new and changed pages for accessibility before and after they are published, carrying out practical checks such as keyboard-only navigation and the use of screen readers and browser zoom, using automated accessibility checking tools to flag common issues, and paying close attention to the feedback we receive from people who use the site. Where checks or feedback reveal a barrier, we log it, prioritise it according to its impact, and work to resolve it, keeping a record so that we can see patterns and demonstrate improvement.

The board has overall responsibility for our approach to accessibility, consistent with our commitment to inclusion in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, and receives information about significant accessibility issues and the progress we are making. Any personal data we process in the course of responding to accessibility feedback is handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy. This statement will be reviewed and updated as our website changes, as the relevant standards evolve, and as our monitoring identifies areas to improve.

If you have any question about this Accessibility Statement, if you would like to report an accessibility barrier, or if you would like information in an alternative format, please contact us and we will be glad to help.

Accessibility feedback and alternative-format requests: beecharity1@gmail.com

Complaints: beecharity1@gmail.com

Postal address: "bee Charity" Verein, c/o Jasmin Semra Gabrielli, Bahnhofstrasse 33, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland