The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications presented methodological recommendations on providing the population with accessible cultural services, as well as an interactive “Barrier-Free Map” of cultural institutions in Ukraine.
“Methodological recommendations on providing the population with accessible cultural services are the result of joint work over the year, numerous consultations and meetings with partners. Our goal is to make culture in Ukraine truly fair and equal for everyone. We have created a practical guideline for cultural institutions that will help organize spaces, events, and communication so that every person feels involved and important, ” — said Lesya Khemraeva, Head of the Accessibility Policy Department of the ICSC.
The methodological recommendations are a practical document designed to help cultural institutions implement the principles of inclusion at all stages of their work — from planning space to organizing events and using plain language in communicating with visitors.
“The Accessibility Map” is an interactive tool that demonstrates the level of physical and information accessibility of cultural institutions across the country. It allows for systematic monitoring of accessibility in the cultural sphere and helps identify areas for improvement.
“It is difficult to adapt something, it is easier to think about accessibility at the creation stage. It’s hard to rebuild an uncomfortable house, it’s easy to think about its convenience when you’re planning it. It’s hard to record audio description and subtitles over the film, coordinate it with the director, producer, and deal with all this six years after the film was released. It’s easy to help the director, producer, and screenwriter work through all these stages at the film’s creation stage. This is a general philosophy. That is, to do something, let’s start with accessibility, with those things that are currently in the works. Because adapting is always harder,” explained Vitaliy Serhiychuk, director of the NGO “Inclusively Welcome.”
