NORMALIZATION

Jesús García Peón
Webmaster - Editor
www.minusval2000.com

"Normalization" will arrive when politicians, architects, hoteliers... understand they are to create environments that are going to be used by people with diverse functionality too: wheelchair users, blind and deaf people or people with any other physical impairments who have the right not to feel discriminated nor to request permission to access to places.

Polibea is one of those companies born with the aim to live by and for the disabled community. All those of us who belong, in a way or another, to this community we do know how difficult any task becomes so that when I was asked to contribute to Polibea Turismo October I did my best to find that spare time I never have.

Personally, I belong, as a result of the sequels that polio bequeathed, to that group of people with functional diversity who is able to move by means of a wheelchair. As a profession, I have always worked as a salesman, as a commercial traveller, so there's no need to say that I have spent half of my life travelling thus suffering the harshness caused by the usual ignorance towards wheelchair users: considering the way we have been ignored, one has to think that we are invisible.

By year 2000, I began to publish in the Website www.minusval2000.com some hotels and/or public venues which might be used by people like me, due to their acceptable/good accessible facilities. I couldn't fancy then that after some time this would become one of the most popular disability related websites in Spain , though it might have been foreseeable accounting for all the difficulties we face when travelling.

Years ago I too used to believe that the problem could be solved with a proper legislation, but time came up with the evidence and showed this not to be enough. Legislation has arrived, new laws are being approved, but it seems that solutions don't arrive. This is one of the reasons for me to believe now that the solution to the question of accessibility and the creation of a non-discriminatory accessible tourism must arrive hand-in-hand with "normalization ". In a business trip to Germany in the 80's I was astonished by the places and venues which were accessible and when I stated my surprise to my hosts I was told that it was mainly due to the need to employ disabled people the World War II had caused. I then began to understand what "normalization" should mean regarding my own country.

Disabled people have never existed in Spain. We have been socially ignored until recent years; luckily, things seem to be changing as more and more of us are "making noise", demanding a job and equal social relationships. Still, a lot has to be done and websites like Polibea and Minusval2000 can develop a praiseworthy work.

"Normalization" will arrive when politicians, architects, hoteliers... understand that they are to create environments that are going to be used too by people with diverse functionality: wheelchair users, blind and deaf people or people with any other physical impairments who have right not to feel discriminated nor to request permission to access to places.

There are some hotels offering one or a couple of rooms adapted for people with reduced mobility, but this can't be considered as "normalization". A day will have to arrive when a public venue without proper accesses for a wheelchair, without elevators adapted for the blind or lack sufficient space to be accessed by a wheelchair user, cannot be built. Furthermore, a day will arrive when restaurants will have to offer menu cards in Braille and have accessible/adapted toilets prior to open to the public.

"Normalization" will also bring blocks of flats featuring suitably signalized and accessible parking bays, entrance at street level, sufficiently wide doors, and practicable bathrooms, at least one per flat. It is shocking that a 60m2 flat can have two bathrooms and none of them is accessible. "Normalization" is still a chimera but not an impossible one because it's up to all and any of us to make it possible.

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