Nigeria Accessibility Walk Project

[EmekaUlor]

 When I announced the first NAW meetup  , we didn't know we'd go this far. We have been more enlightened about accessibility and more people are aware of the need to make our communities accessible.

NAW Meetup logo

 Nigeria Accessible Walk (NAW) will be a continuous meet-up to improve maps for our disabled (differently able) brethren.

Together we can make Nigeria accessible!

Here is link to some of our successful meet ups thus far: 

NAW  1 Mission Street, Lagos State 

NAW 2 Broad Street, Lagos State

NAW 3 Marina, Lagos State 

NAW 4 Mbaise, Imo State

NAW 5 - Owerri, Imo State 

NAW 6 - Awka, Anambra State 

NAW 7 - Ikeja, Lagos State 

NAW 8  - Tafawa Balewa, Lagos State

NAW 9 - Maitama District, Abuja 

NAW 10 - Minna, Niger State 

NAW 11 - Oniru, Lagos

NAW 12 - Wuse, Abuja

INTERNATIONAL ACCESSIBILITY WALKS

1. Accessibility Walk San Francisco, .CA, U.S.A

2. Accessibility Walk Dubai, U.A.E

If you know any place in Nigeria with Accessibility features do add them on the NAW list. Join us as as we add more accessible places on Google Maps. 

Worldwide Accessibility Walk Dec 2018

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1YUKkNsYRKZP7Eq2EuYLLeI_4OomIroMZ&ll=8.769225428095822%2C-24....

[IlankovanT]

Wonderful @EmekaUlor 🙂 I love hosting accessibility meet-ups and knowledge sharing sessions with fellow local guides. I have planned few meet-ups this month and one for accessibility
you may like some of my Accessibility meetup's from this list 🙂

[aka_Rὁn]

@EmekaUlor

One of the reasons why I joined Google Maps was to help highlight the fact that almost every one of the local owner-run shops in our avenue has an accessible entrance by design.

This is something the community insisted upon over two decades ago but the sad fact is that that the nearest Underground Station which has an elevator for wheelchair access is a bus ride away.

A lot of my voluntary work is with an organisation which provides a support and information network for citizens with disabilities who wish to lead independent lives rather than be shoved into some form of institution or care home.

As a result accessibility issues are always close to my heart and it is almost tragic to see how many so-called professionals have a blind spot.

There was a presentation organised by our local council that was meant to promote a beautiful frontage to a newly developed railway station and it certainly looked beautiful and featured a gently curving pathway which was meant to make wheelchair travel a comfortable experience.

The irony was that the accessibility was limited to the ticket office and that there was absolutely no way that the wheelchairs could be easily brought down to the train platform as the staircase was too steep and there was no elevator.

How this simple fact evaded both the architects, the developers and the local council astonishes me and they were quite surprised to discover that their captive audience almost booed them offstage when this fact was brought to light.

Before the flashy executives left the centre they confirmed that the project was still going to be implemented as it stood and that there was absolutely no budget for providing wheelchair access to the train platform below.

I'm sure that you have probably several similar stories that involve this degree of corporate idiocy to share with us all.

In the meantime I am very pleased by the fact that Google Maps always asks about accessibility in their Q&A edits and it is good that these issues are most definitely "on the map" in more ways than one.


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[EmekaUlor]

@aka_Rὁn quite an interesting story there. I think there's always a way around providing accessibility. The train station could budget extra funds to have some kind of lift or escalator to get wheelchairs to the platforms 

Nice reading from you.

Cheers

Emeka 

[ShafiulB]

@EmekaUlor So appreciated! I would love join with you and want to start an accessibility project in Bangladesh with my Worldwide friends. Hope i will get more help from you...

Happy Guiding !!