"Accessible Museum" . Integrated programme for visitors with disabilities
The Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola is Poland’s first institution to run an integrated educational project aimed to facilitate the perception of art for individuals with motor, visual, aural and mental disabilities.
‘Ours is becoming an integrated museum where a disabled person receives the same treatment as any other visitor. The only thing we did was make our collections more accessible to the disabled,’ says Lucyna Mizera, the museum director.
This ambitious project entails the removal of architectural barriers, staff training, and educational activities for visitors. The first works included the construction of a platform lift, removal of doorsteps, assembly of railings and providing parking space for the disabled. Lucyna Mizera emphasizes that many of these works can be done at very little cost or as part of routine repairs. Whatever you do, you must remember to consider the needs of the disabled, and it is always best to do it at the stage of preparing the design or tender documentation. Simultaneously with the works there was staff training run by the best experts from Poland and abroad. The “Accessible Museum” project is supported by the Council for the Disabled Visitors which advises the museum staff on how to make an institution friendly and attractive for individuals with different disabilities.
‘We usually associate the disabled with the blind or deaf, whereas in fact, there are many more types of disability which differ enormously. That’s why we have considered in our project a wide variety of needs, interests, abilities and limitations,’ says Lucyna Mizera.
The project also puts a great emphasis on education. There is a new fully-equipped educational room with apparatus, furniture and artefacts for tactile perception. An important part of the project is cooperation with museum Staff and experts from the Ukraine, covering both the organization of training events and educational offerings for disabled visitors.
This is just the first step in a more comprehensive programme of international cooperation. Together with experts from Poland and the Ukraine, the museum has prepared a complex training project which is to be run in the Ukraine.
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