Solutions from Ukraine: League of Strong presents practical solutions to creating barrier-free communities

The League of the Strong, a public organization, has created a checklist called "Barrier-Free Community 2.0" to assist local officials in implementing accessibility standards in their communities. This document includes both legal requirements and practical suggestions.

The executive director of the League of the Strong, Dariia Sydorenko, reported this during the presentation of the checklist at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center.

What is the problem?

According to recent data from the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine, only 22% of physical environment objects in the country are currently barrier-free. These statistics were gathered from a survey of 54,000 physical environment objects.

Local governments often have responsibility for creating an inclusive environment. However, many communities lack the tools, knowledge, and explicit algorithms to implement barrier-free solutions.

"Due to the decentralization reform, a significant part of the responsibility for developing barrier-free space lies with communities. It is there that people live, work, take their children to school, and use transport. However, without a clear roadmap, many efforts remain unsystematic," explains accessibility expert consultant Volodymyr Vysotsky.

What is the solution?

The League of the Strong has developed an updated checklist, "Barrier-Free Community 2.0", a practical navigator for local managers. The document contains recommendations based on years of experience working with communities, including individual consultations.

The checklist explains:

• how to make barrier-free a strategic vector in community development;
• which documents should be changed and which should be systematically and gradually implemented barrier-free in all aspects.

The updated version of the Center for Expertise in the Field of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also includes recommendations for restoring damaged areas, with mandatory adherence to universal design principles.

"We presented the "Barrier-Free Community" checklist at one time, which has become helpful for many. But during the year, the League of the Strong experts provided more than 100 individual consultations for communities, from which they realized that the document needed to be finalized to make it more user-friendly.

This checklist is a roadmap of what a community should do to ensure accessibility in the field. It combines legislative requirements and practical solutions," Dariia Sydorenko, executive director of the League of the Strong public association, said.

How does it work?

The checklist is based on the tasks of the National Strategy for the Creation of a Barrier-Free Space in Ukraine for the Period Until 2030, which should be implemented at the level of territorial communities. Therefore, for each task, the document describes a clear algorithm of actions that will help implement barrier-free spaces in areas such as transport, administrative services, education, and urban infrastructure. Each step in this algorithm is supported by additional links to useful sources: manuals, methodological recommendations, guidelines, etc.

In the Zviahel community, the Barrier-Free Council was established based on suggestions from the League of the Strong. They also implemented a Barrier-Free Development Program and monitored the urban infrastructure. According to Nataliia Demianenko, the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning Head, the community has already begun identifying steps to enhance accessibility further.

The checklist can be downloaded for free from the Center for Expertise in the Field of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Ukraine's website, and representatives of local governments can also receive free consultations by filling out the appropriate form.

For reference:

The Barrier-Free Community 2.0 checklist was created within the framework of the "Center for Expertise in the Field of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" project with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation as part of the joint initiative "European Renaissance of Ukraine."

As reported, the National Strategy for Creating a Barrier-Free Space by 2030 was initiated by First Lady Olena Zelenska and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in 2021. The strategy aims to create conditions that help every person, regardless of gender, age, origin, health status, and social status, fully exercise their rights and freedoms.

Ukraine also intends to improve the system for monitoring the effectiveness of accessibility and inclusion measures: according to last year's results, only 22% of the 54 thousand objects studied were barrier-free. In addition, they want to strengthen control over new building codes, providing a relatively wide range of applications for accessibility standards.