Ukrainians with Disabilities Fight for Rights
According to European statistics, handicapped people generally constitute from 8% to 12% of a society’s population. In Ukraine, this adds up to some 3.5 million people. General access to public buildings and places is far from equal for the physically impaired in Ukraine. The problem grows worse when looking for a vacation destination to fit their needs.
In Ukraine, opportunities for physically challenged travelers in the mountains, national parks, and for that matter at any vacation spot, are virtually nonexistent. Ukraine’s tourist industry doesn’t offer services for people with special needs. As a rule, hotels and tourist centers are not designed to accommodate these tourists. Even new tourist complexes or those being restored do not consider the needs of the physically impaired. The situation is compounded by the absence of any government-sponsored program that would require equal access for such individuals at vacation destinations.
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| A group of physically impaired grills sausages |
The situation in western Ukraine was no different from the rest of the country before Green Cross, a Lviv-based CSO, decided to address this problem and bring Ukrainian laws on access for the physically impaired in line with European standards. With USAID support, the CSO initiated a project to secure the right to an active vacation for Ukraine’s physically impaired.
To learn more about what is needed to ensure the physically challenged an enjoyable and active vacation, Green Cross organized two integrative camps. Twenty wheel-chaired, 40 hearing- and 30 visually-impaired individuals participated in several trips to the Carpathian Mountains to explore and evaluate their accessibility to tourist venues. They drafted recommendations to make those sites “impaired user-friendly.” Four PSAs were filmed during the trips, and through an aggressive PR campaign, the issue gained national attention.
After this the project conducted six roundtables with representatives of local and regional governments, CSOs, and the tourist industry working together to resolve the problems associated with equal access to tourism services.
The project also made recommendations to hotels and tourist centers on how to better accommodate physically impaired guests. A manual for tourist industry representatives titled “Active Vacationing and Tourism for the Physically Challenged” designed to promote full-fledged vacations for various types of physically impaired individuals was developed and widely distributed.
The project culminated in an international conference in May 2005 attended by tourist agency, government and business representatives. The conference proposed amendments to existing legislation guaranteeing equal access for the physically impaired to tourist sites. In early 2006, the Parliament is scheduled to review these amendments within a draft law on green tourism.
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