Monitoring of the accessibility of environment was presented in Minsk to public in the frames of Accessibility Week. It was held before the Hockey World Championship which took place in Minsk. The monitoring was held by volunteers with the help of specially created “Barrier-free environment monitoring tool”. Volunteers evaluated objects that could be used by potential participants of sporting events: railway station and airport, sport arenas, hotels and hostels, commercial units and other service providers.
After the analyses of the information Office’s for the rights of persons with disabilities specialists had to admit insufficient degree of accessibility of WCH 2014.
- This evaluation is not aimed at underestimating the importance of all the efforts, measures and money spent for the provision of WCH’s accessibility. Vice versa their importance was devalued by the lack of system approach and insufficient concern about the needs of guests with disabilities, lack of culture of respect of all guests – says the coordinator of the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities Sergey Drozdovsky.
On the basis of the evaluation specialists created the list of recommendations concerning the provision of the accessibility of environment at different levels which should be taken into account during holding mass sporting events. For example, organizers should use the experience of foreign specialists and include a specialist in accessibility issues to the organizational committee. A part of recommendations are practical ways how to make information materials, transport, architectural environment more accessible and they also concern the issues of nondiscrimination and provision of security for participants with disabilities, teaching disability etiquette to the staff.
