Taipei Plan of Action for Accessible Tourism

» RollingRains - Creating Accessible Tourism After the Tsunami

Another concrete outcome of the 2005 International Conference on Accessible Tourism was the creation of the Working Group on Inclusive Destination Development (WG - IDD). You may contact me if you wish to contribute to this work. Below is a letter of introduction from our lead contact in Indonesia:

I have been working since early February with UN-Habitat to coordinate the delivery of housing and infrastructure grants and technical assistance to the communities affected by the disaster in Aceh. This program is a part of a larger UNDP Emergency Response and Transitional Recovery Programme. In addition to that, I am also assisting the central government in the preparation of housing and settlement guidelines that can be used by all agencies involved in the provision of shelter in the earthquake and tsunami-affected areas of Aceh and Northern Sumatra. It is with this additional assignment that my input might reach larger audiences, i.e.other donors and NGOs working in those provinces.

Scott is right: to be able to manage this huge assignment and put the interest of less-able people high in the agenda I certainly need a network I can rely on for technical assistance.

At this stage what I need most is information on best practices from all over the world on universal design for housing, community infrastructure, and micro-spatial planning; and examples of campaign materials that can be used at various levels of audiences, from laymen to policy makers.

Dr. Erwin Fahmi

Correspondence to the Working Group may be addressed to Dr. Scott Rains -- srains@oco.net

-- posted by RollingRains