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Catering for People with Special Needs

People with disabilities have just as much right to enjoy our gardens as the able-bodied. Each of our target groups includes people with disabilities, but perhaps we ought also to target people with these special needs as a group in themselves.

We need to address two major issues:

• How are we going to reach those with disabilities, to get them to visit the garden in the first place?
• How can we adapt the gardens and our education programmes to meet their needs?
  

It is often the case that general mailings and public relations efforts do not reach special schools and organisations for children and adults with disabilities. We need to make a special effort to see that these types of organisation receive our attention and information on our relevant activities.

Making the Garden More Accessible

First of all staff in botanic gardens need to research the types of problems of access people with disabilities have. This may mean; providing wheelchair ramps, making sure that directional and interpretive signs are not sited too high up, providing tours using personal stereos and cassettes, setting up programmes where visitors can touch and feel the plants, providing pamphlets and educational materials in braille, running tours and programmes in sign language.
Are there any guidelines that botanic gardens could follow?
In some countries, recommendations and guidelines on providing access for people with disabilities are available. National guidelines may also be available from pressure groups and organisations working with disabled people. Other botanic gardens who have already tried to address the problem may also be useful sources of information.

To be more effective worldwide in providing access to environmental education in botanic gardens for the disabled we need to do the following:

• carry out research on the experiences of disabled people in botanic gardens.
• prepare a check-list of minimum standards and provisions to be aimed for.
• put together a bank of knowledge and expertise on this theme.
• find gardens that have been successful in catering for people with disabilities, that can serve as models for other gardens.
• set up special PR and information programmes for people with special needs.

The provision of access to environmental education within botanic gardens for people with disabilities is an important and wide-reaching issue which needs to be considered carefully if gardens are to be successful.