How to bring cultural heritage closer to people with disabilities? And how to support cultural workers in this direction?

Those are the questions in the focus of our new project – “CURABILITY – Cultural Accessibility” (2021-1-ES01-KA220-ADU-000030420). The partnership includes 7 organisations from 6 European countries – FEDERACIO D’ASSOCIACIONS DE DISCAPACITATS FISICS I ORGANICS MESTRALCOCEMFE TARRAGONA (Spain), Creativity and Educational Studio ARTIED (Bulgaria), VSI EDUKACINIAI PROJEKTAI – EDUPRO (Lithuania), G.G. EUROSUCCESS CONSULTING (Cyprus), “Microkosmos” Associazione Culturale (Italy), Fundacja Instytut Re-Integracji Spolecznej (Poland) and Associacio Programes Educatius Open Europe (Spain).

With the project we want to:

• Help museums and art galleries to have a greater understanding of the needs of visitors with disabilities and to implement necessary changes and improvements in the environment and in attitude.
• Share best practices for improving skills and competences of cultural institutions and cultural workers to support visitors with disabilities and to improve their access to cultural heritage.
• Put forward innovative accessibility solutions, which allow people with disabilities to fully enjoy cultural heritage.
• Engage cultural workers and people with disabilities as advisors, co-creators and evaluators of the proposed accessibility solutions.
• Lead by example, raise awareness, stimulate ideas and invite other cultural institutions, policy makers and stakeholders to act and follow suit.

During the CURABILITY project we will:

1. Develop an In-depth Analysis Report on Museums as Role Models for Cultural Accessibility (in a form of ‘live:docs’).
2. Create an EU network of stakeholders and accessible museums and art galleries and a data base with examples of publicly available projects, trainings and good practices for accessible cultural heritage.
3. Create and organise a series of Webinars for Accessible Curators on the topics of “3D Design & Printing” and “Cultural Accessibility”.
4. Create a CURABILITY community and promote the use of innovative & accessible tools like GENIE CHALLENGE and Open Badges ecosystem for transparency, validation & recognition of the received competences.
5. Launch an advocacy campaign at EU level and a public petition – “CULTURAL VADEMECUMS” with policy recommendations in the field.
6. Initiate an annual competition at local, regional, national & EU level for the most accessible cultural place.

In this way, we want to open the cultural sector to people with disabilities and to support cultural institutions, cultural workers and trainers, relevant policy makers and stakeholders to improve their awareness and competences how to make cultural heritage more accessible.

For more information, please check our Facebook profile and the project website.

The project “CURABILITY – Cultural Accessibility” (2021-1-ES01-KA220-ADU-000030420) is funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the EU, through the Spanish National Agency.

      2021-1-ES01-KA220-ADU-000030420     

This project has been co-funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.