On 17th June 2024, at the headquarters of Legacoop Liguria, the lead partner DAFNE hosted the first round table with 14 stakeholders who have decided to participate both in presence or remotely.
The objective of this event was to involve local associations dealing with disabilities, tourism professionals and public authorities in order to discuss the accessibility of local nature areas, to identify concrete issues and to propose potential solutions.
The round table began with a presentation of the various participants and their associations or organizations:
- Nature and hiking guides;
- Il Porto dei piccoli
- A porte aperte
- Celivo disability network
- FreeSport
- Sorrisi Invincibili
- coop il Ce.Sto
- Legacoop Liguria
Representatives from AISM (Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla), Liguria Region, Beigua Park and Outbee have participated remotely.
During the round table, Veronica Littardi and Marilù Cavallero – the two representatives from DAFNE – have illustrated the DIANA Project, explaining why and how it started, its vision and mission, the planned outputs. Then, they shared with the participants the results of the questionnaire sent to private users and public authorities to analyse the state of the art of the local nature areas in the past weeks.
The survey has underlined a relevant and discrepant perception of the levels of accessibility in the Liguria region’s nature parks between public administrations and users.
Later, the debate and discussion among the participants has led to some interesting conclusions about the low level of accessibility in local nature areas and how there is a general lack of knowledge about the topic of disability.
The participants have agreed on the need of educating and informing the civil society and the public bodies about the urgence of breaking down architectural barriers and promoting training opportunities for tourism professionals to face and support people with cognitive and psychic disabilities.
All these considerations will be examined in the first project’s intellectual output: the Compendium of best practices in Accessibility and Inclusive Tourism in Protected Areas which will be available on DIANA’s website from September 2024!
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