How adapted are cultural institutions to people with disabilities and how to make them more accessible and inclusive is the topic of a three-day workshop for people with disabilities and museum professionals that began yesterday in Tuzla. 

The workshop is organized by the Cultural Heritage without Borders Foundation (CHwB) and the Balkan Museum Network (BMN), and is implemented within the project "Persons with Disabilities in Museums".

According to Aida Salektić, program assistant at the Cultural Heritage Without Borders Foundation, this project aims to increase the accessibility of museums and galleries for people with disabilities, and to enable this category of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to participate more fully in activities conducted by museums and other cultural institutions.

- The workshop includes a theoretical and practical part, and in the first part it talks about the general approach in our country, i.e. the level of accessibility to museums and cultural institutions for people with disabilities, and about some general principles and rules that should be followed when planning events in public cultural spaces. The second and third days will be practically filled with testing the accessibility of the building we are in (MGP) for people with disabilities - said Salektić for Tuzlarije.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are legal frameworks designed to implement standards for people with disabilities, especially since all Balkan countries have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The legal framework stipulates that people with disabilities should have the same rights as able-bodied people.

– There are laws, but as far as the gallery and museum spaces we visited are concerned, we can conclude that the situation is not exactly commendable. When we talk about accessibility for disabled people to cultural institutions, it should be emphasized that this is not just a matter of physical obstacles, but also of the facilities located within a building. For example, is the information desk too high for people in wheelchairs to use it properly, and then, as an equally important factor, are the employees of museums or galleries who are not trained to communicate with visitors with disabilities. Often, workers in cultural institutions do not know how to behave in such situations, so it is difficult to find a person who can serve disabled people in an appropriate manner, and the reasons for this are social in nature, the people in charge do not think about these things, explains Salektić.

When it comes to the International Portrait Gallery, which hosts the workshops, it should be said that in this institution there is a mobile climber that can be activated when a disabled person in a wheelchair arrives.

- However, in the conversation with the director, we found out that there was not enough interaction between this house and possible users, so it is common knowledge that the access is not suitable for disabled people. The Museum of Eastern Bosnia is not located in a suitable building that would meet museum criteria, so we cannot talk about access for the disabled to the exhibition space because it does not exist, but it is important to say that in its plan for the adaptation of the building, this Museum has an adaptation of the approach for the disabled - said Aida Salektić at the end of the interview for Tuzlarije.

The workshops have so far been held in Mostar and Zenica, and after Tuzla, the cities of Sarajevo and Banja Luka are next. 

Source: (tuzlarije.net)