About 40 persons with locomotor disabilities as well as parents with small children will raise awareness of the lack of wheelchair access to the public institutions in their settlements. The project “Access for Everyone” will be implemented by the Association “Motivatie” in the towns of Chisinau, Edinet, Cahul, and Hancesti.

Contacted by IPN, “Motivatie” executive director Igor Meriacre said the project will be carried out between October 2013 and May 2014 and is a continuation of the project “Free in Action”. There will be created four teams of volunteers that will include persons with locomotor disabilities and parents who face difficulties because the public institutions do not have wheelchair access.

At the first stage, the team leaders will be trained to file a complaint to the local public authorities and to sensitize the people to the problem of free access to institutions. After the training, the volunteers will assess the access level to the public institutions in the four settlements and will take pictures that will be exhibited within awareness raising events that will be organized next May.

As part of the project, there will be identified the public institutions that provide wheelchair access. The collected data will be included in the accessibility map that will be drawn up by the Association “Motivatie”.

Over the last few weeks, the members of the Association had discussions with representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction. They proposed that the architects who design apartment buildings and institutions should be obliged to include wheelchair access. They also asked formulating amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses so as to to impose fines on the managers who do not ensure wheelchair access to the already constructed buildings.