The History For You And For Me

Although historical heritage buildings undoubtedly are an important part of many touristic routes, provision of accessibility to them often is a technically complex process. This is a real challenge - the desire to preserve the visual appearance of historic buildings and hence their value, but at the same time making them accessible to everyone.

This European Lifelong Learning "Grundtvig" adult learning project addressed these issues.

Many countries choose the simplest solution – and do not provide access at all. At the same time other countries have chosen to seek unconventional solutions for this problem. They save the value of historic buildings on the one hand, and provide dignified access for people with disabilities.

Download the project digital leaflets and Project Summary in PDF format from the right-hand column.

About the project

LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME
GRUNDTVIG Learning Partnerships
Grant agreement no 2012-1-LV1-GRU06-03576 5
Title:  The history for you and for me
Call from 2012 till 2014

Tourism has a key role in Europe's economy. Its strategic importance is based not only on quantitative data but also on tourism's ability to create jobs and thus meet the objective of the European Agenda 2020.

Tourism also has a positive impact on local and regional economies, as well as on social, cultural and environmental conditions, and thus provides a means of adults learning process through the understanding of other cultures and different ways of being and behaving; it also acts as an instrument for interregional cooperation.

Unfortunately, there still are many Europeans who are not able to take full advantage of these opportunities – people with disabilities, elderly people, new families with small children in prams – they all are not able to use many historical places and touristic attractions just because these places are not accessible for them. Today more and more attention is given to the issues related to physical accessibility of accommodations, but this alone cannot solve the problems, for visitors with reduced mobility many touristic attractions and especially cultural heritage buildings often are not accessible. This situation excludes many people from the possibility to take an active part in the process of learning which integral part of each traveling activity is.

Partners

The partnership consisted of both nonprofit and commercial organisations linked to Tourism related activities in the partner countries, the majority of partners working with, or representing disabled people, and all with a focus on accessibility issues.

Latvian Umbrella Body for Disability organisation SUSTENTO Latvian partner is a non-profit organisation uniting 44 non-governmental organizations, which incorporate people with different disabilities and chronic illnesses. The organization has 50 000 members. Their aim is to promote opportunity of equal participation for all members of the society, to enable protection of rights of people with disabilities.

The BumbleBee Alliance CIC is an award winning, non profit, based in the UK. The main groups the organisation serves are: Young People with disabilities, and those with profound and additional educational needs, Elderly people, Young offenders, and those who are NEET (Neither in Education, Employment or Training).

The Estonian Agrenska Foundation was established in 2003 as an Estonian-Swedish jointly run service for education and training of families where there is a disabled child. The aim of the Foundation is to ease the everyday life of families who are raising a disabled child by offering consulting, family activities, respite care services.

Juvenile Justice International CIC is an international, nonprofit, based in Folkestone, UK. They work to benefit disadvantaged young people up to 25 years and particularly those have offended, or at risk of offending, those with disabilities and those who misuse alcohol or drugs. As an international focused organisation they bring international experience of working with young adults who have disabilities and accessibility issues.

Consulmarc Sviluppo was established in 1979, with the aim of giving support and technical assistance for the development of companies and other bodies at European level, with special regard to the fields of intercultural dialogue, youth inclusion, ICT, and vocational training. Thanks to its experience in European policies and programmes helped to define the context in which the project was developed.

Lithuanian Forum for the Disabled (LNF) is an umbrella for non-governmental, non-profit organization. It has 14 members – national organizations representing over 250 000 people with disabilities of Lithuania. The mission of LNF is to strive toward state policy that promotes human, social and economical rights for disabled.

Pixel Service & Consulting Srl is a private company operating in Italy in the ICT field, developing web solutions and specific products focused on tourism. The company has experience related to accessibility in tourism, developing a special platform to support a tourism strategic plan with technological services.

Federatia ONPHR - National Organization of Disabled People in Romania Federation was founded in 1994 and it is nongovernmental, humanitarian, human rights, non-profit organization. It has 30 member organizations, bringing together 75 associations and foundations representing 150,000 people with disabilities.

The main exploitable output of the project is the “DIGITAL LEAFLET” prepared by collecting, describing and analyzing good practices on heritage accessibility developed in the local contexts of the project partners.

This document has been written with the aim that:

• EDUCATIONAL PROVIDERS, especially those promoting informal and non formal training, can learn from the strategies adopted to develop accessibility-based projects for the fruition of local heritage to include new activities in their training, also reinforcing their co-operation with association, local enterprises and the civil society;

• DIFFERENT LOCAL ADMINISTRATIONS may use it to further develop existing strategies for barriers removal and accessibility promotion. Furthermore, they can ideate new strategies and public-private partnership schemes, deriving inspiration from the presented best practices promoted through public-private partnership;

• OTHER LOCAL STAKEHOLDERS including associations, organisation and semi-public companies can develop a more targeted and concrete awareness raising action on accessibility, taking into consideration to the project conclusions and bearing each individual citizen’s well being in mind, with the aim to make accessibility become a global concern and a catalyser of social cohesion.

• TOURISM AGENCIES AND TOURISM – RELATED COMPANIES could use leaflet to provide more detailed information on the accessibility of some EU destinations.