K-Veloce I+D+I and Polibienestar Research Institute at University of Valencia supports the “MapMyDay” campaign, a worldwide mapping event taking place on International Day of Personas with Disabilities (3 December) and initiated by Berlin NGO Sozialhelden e.V. and the World Health Organisation.
People worldwide are asked to mark the public places they come to during the day on Wheelmap.org, an online map for wheelchair accessible places developed by Sozialhelden.
The campaign specifically not only addresses people with a disability: “Barriers affect many people: Seniors, children, families. With the campaign “MapMyDay” we want to start a worldwide movement to call attention to barriers and to eliminate them in the best of cases”, says activist Raúl Krauthausen, the inventor of Wheelmap.org.
To prepare for the event, all who are interested can inform themselves on the websitewww.mapmyday.org to find out how they can be part of the movement as an individual, with friends, colleagues or family members, in their clubs, schools or associations. The makers of Wheelmap are offering a simple get-involved-campaign with “MapMyDay”. All one needs is access to the internet. It is really easy: log in with a smartphone or computer, select a place and choose between “fully, partially or not wheelchair accessible”.
On the one hand, “MapMyDay” aims to make more information available to people about their environment. “Does my favourite café have a step at the entrance? Could I enter the supermarket around the corner in a wheelchair without a problem? Which nearby subway stations have an elevator? The answers to these questions benefit everyone”, says Raúl Krauthausen. Simultaneously, the campaign seeks to raise awareness for the barriers that people with mobility impairments and families with baby carriages are confronted with on a daily basis.
One of the partners of “MapMyDay” is MyAccessible.EU, the awareness platform of EU research project CAP4Access in which Polibienestar participates as project partner. CAP4Access (2014-2016) is developing and piloting innovative ICT tools which support wheelchair users and other people with limited physical mobility in negotiating the city. The project also addresses other urban stakeholders by helping them boost accessibility of the built environment in European cities. Polibienestar leads the work package of policy recommendations that tries to involve stakeholders in the project with the purpose of sharing with them the knowledge acquired in the project in order to allow them to make informed decisions about participative strategies to face the accessibility in normative and urban planning, transports, Smart cities, etc. Moreover, Polibienestar participates in all the activities of the project providing its expertise in this field and supervising the pilot that will be developed in the City of Elche.
More information about the campaign is available at www.mapmyday.org, on Facebook, Twitter and with the hashtag #mapmyday. To know more about the activities that Polibienestar organises in the framework of this campaign, please be aware to our website and twitter @Polibienestar.
