Coventry launches access guide to the City in time for the Games!

Coventry is the latest city to join online access guide www.disabledgo.com providing a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to know more about access to the City during the Games.

The guide to Coventry covers over 1000 venues including – The City of Coventry Stadium where they will be hosting the football during the Olympics. The guide also covers everything from cinemas, hotels, parks and leisure centres to council offices, high street stores, restaurants and tourist attractions.

The guide, which launched on Tuesday 17^th July 2012 will enable residents and visitors to find out whether venues have accessible toilets or parking close by but also specific details such as whether there are tactile or Braille markings in lifts or on doors, the dimensions of toilets, the positioning of fixtures and fittings and whether you can request large print or Braille information.

DisabledGo have been working in partnership with Coventry City Council to produce the guide and have employed local disabled people to work as part of the surveying team. The local surveyors have been trained and employed by DisabledGo especially for this project.

Speaking about the guide local surveyor Robert Wright said;

“The DisabledGo online guides help disabled people along the long and difficult journey towards optimum independence.  Optimum independence means being able to go to a shop, a restaurant, a cinema or a public building in the knowledge that you can do your business as easily as the rest of the population.  The sooner the guides cover the whole of the UK the better.

Identifying access issues is in itself a valuable service for disabled people.  Equally important is the effect of the surveys for the guides in raising awareness of the needs of disabled people.”

All of the information provided on DisabledGo-Coventry will also be available on the ‘Looking Local’ service on the red button on your TV, so if you don’t have access to a computer at home you can still get the information you need.

To view the guide, please go to http://www.disabledgo.com/en/org/city-of-coventry we would love to hear what you think.

If you would like more information about DisabledGo please contact Dean Eales, Partnership Administrator (E: dean.eales@disabledgo.com T: 01438 842710).

Young athletes will mirror Paralympians’ quest for gold in 2012

Some of the UK’s most talented young disabled athletes are to take part in Paralympic-style events in key London 2012 venues, just weeks before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

The events will run alongside those for non-disabled young people at the finals of the government’s new School Games next May.

Young disabled athletes will compete for medals in swimming, athletics, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing and table-tennis, with demonstration events in other sports yet to be decided.

The finals will take place in the main Olympic Stadium, the Aquatics Centre and the cycling Velodrome – all in the Olympic Park in Stratford – and the ExCeL Centre in London’s Royal Docks, with finalists selected by their national sporting bodies.

The competition aims to “mirror” the Olympics and Paralympics, including opening and closing ceremonies, and will be the last event held in the Olympic Park before the Olympic opening ceremony on 27 July.

In the months leading up to the finals – but only in England – there will be competitions within schools, between local schools, and then county- and city-wide festivals.

The county- and city-wide events will have to include a minimum of eight sports, of which five must include competitive opportunities for young disabled people.

So far, a third of English primary and secondary schools – about 8,000 – have signed up to take part in the School Games, which includes a commitment to provide opportunities for competitive sport for their disabled students.

These opportunities are likely to come either from linking up with disabled students in other local mainstream schools, or by providing inclusive sporting opportunities in their own school.

Alison Oliver, director of sport for the Youth Sport Trust, the organisation commissioned by Sport England to deliver the School Games, said there was “no question” that the competition would increase sporting opportunities for disabled young people.

She said: “The biggest challenge is making sure that those opportunities are as meaningful and sustainable as possible, so what we are building is not just something that is here today and gone tomorrow.

“This is about giving young disabled people the same sorts of possibilities we give non-disabled young people, in enabling them to achieve their personal best.

“There is no doubt that more young disabled people will be engaged through this. The biggest challenge is how big the transformation will be.”

National sporting bodies will select the athletes to take part in the finals, who will compete for England – or possibly for their English regions – against young people from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the four Olympic venues.

At this year’s UK School Games – the predecessor event for the School Games – eight per cent of the 1,750 competitors were disabled young people.

Oliver said she hoped this would rise to 10 per cent for the finals of the School Games next May.

Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for culture, Olympics, media and sport, said: “The competition will use the inspiration of 2012 to transform competitive sport in schools and get more young people playing sport, long after next summer.”

More than £100 million of National Lottery and government funding is being invested in the School Games over the next three years.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

New access website will open up London for 2012 and beyond!

If you want to find out about the disabled access at venues or attractions across the capital new website My Access London is for you.

Whether you’re a visitor or a Londoner the site is packed with information to over 17,000 venues, including major tourist attractions like the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, London Zoo and the O2 Arena. All have been visited and assessed in person so you have all the information you need to plan a trip, experience the 2012 Games or just enjoy the place you live.

The site which officially launches at the beginning of June has been entirely funded and developed by DisabledGo, in response to feedback from disabled people and partner London boroughs who wanted to see an access guide totally dedicated to London.

The website offers an unprecedented choice of personally surveyed access guides, standing by DisabledGo’s commitment to never publish self-assessed, non-verified information.   

The number of venues featured on www.myaccesslondon.com will significantly increase during 2011 in the build up to next year’s Olympic Games. In July alone, 2,000 additional venues will be added thanks to new partnerships with London boroughs. So visit www.myaccesslondon.com and take a look around, you don’t need to register and its totally free.

Our My Access campaign to promote and develop the site for 2012 and importantly beyond will launch in June. You can keep up to date with all the latest news by joining our Facebook page or following us on Twitter, or if you would like to get more involved get in touch with us directly!

If you would like more information about www.myaccesslondon.com please contact Rachel Felton, External Relations Manager. E: rachel.felton@disabledgo.com T: 01438 842710