A journey is formed of the set of small steps we take to reach our destination. Finding our way around the maze of accessible tourism without getting lost is an essential aspect that, for me, is a basic need. This is because there is a real gap between demand and supply and because I am the one who experiences the shortcomings of travelling in a wheelchair. We are a niche market, but there are also a lot of us who need to know how we are going to get about beforehand. The Pepitosa in carrozza Association wants to make up for this lack of information on accessible tourism. We are thinking outside the box of the usual “handicap friendly” symbols here and are focusing on something more detailed: understanding the type of architectural barriers we might encounter around a city or in a museum and how to organise a journey with a manual or electric wheelchair.
We want to start by concentrating on a group of cities: the Italian Capitals of Culture. The Internet was enthusiastic about this idea and we have been selected by MSD Crowdcaring to participate in the new crowdfunding initiative on the Eppela website.
MSD Crowdcaring was created to promote ideas that can improve and prolong people’s lives. The selected projects that achieve the targets through “reward-based” crowdfunding receive co-funding from MSD Italia, as the “Mentor”, for a maximum of 5,000€, depending on the methods indicated in the rules.
The target funding is 10,000€ (5000€ received through donation and 5000€ donated by MSD Crowdcaring) to create and promote a web portal providing information and accessible tourism guides on the Capitals of Culture and the entire country.
The link to the crowdfunding website is: https://www.eppela.com/pepitosalecapitalidellacultura
It is possible to donate up to 26 December 2019.
When the target is reached, we will start creating the website of the Association, which will become a meeting point for a genuine and large community. The website will also provide useful information for anyone travelling in a wheelchair and it will be possible to download the accessible tourism guides (we will try to map as many Italian and foreign cities as possible in the future), thus creating a community of people aware that they can travel independently and without any unpleasant surprises.
