The strategic areas of the Culture Strategy 2025, approved in 2016, include “Goal: Culture is accessible to all members of the society and the freedom of cultural expression is safeguarded.
2.2. Objective: All members of the society, including vulnerable groups, youth and minorities are actively engaged in cultural life and have access to cultural infrastructure and resources.
Tasks:
- Support and encourage cultural institutions, organizations and the businesses, including on the legislative level, in order to provide people with disabilities, socially vulnerable groups, refugees, IDPs, residents of occupied territories with the availability of special services (e.g. lower price tickets, free entrance, informational meetings, etc.) and employment opportunities;
- Ensure that cultural infrastructure, new and existing facilities, comply with accessibility requirements for people with disabilities, adopting them where necessary;
- Train the employees of cultural establishments and organizations to develop their skills necessary for communication with vulnerable groups;
- Support cultural establishments and organizations in providing special programmes and materials (e.g. audio-books, books with Braille font, sign-interpretation, subtitles, on-line and digital applications, etc.) for people with disabilities;
- Support the implementation of legal and regulatory mechanisms, creation of a favorable environment and special programmes in order to support the inclusion of people with disabilities in cultural/arts educational processes at all levels of education;
The next step was the preparation of a “Roadmap for Ensuring Equal Participation of People with Disabilities in Georgia’s Cultural and Creative Life for 2017-2018” by the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia in 2017.
This document aims to create the conceptual framework and mechanisms that will facilitate the participation of persons with disabilities in the cultural life of society. The Roadmap is focused on the challenges of accessibility to culture and creativity, cultural education and services by persons with disabilities and contains the list of activities to be carried out by the Ministry in cooperation with relevant authorities (Ministry of Health, Labour and Social Affairs of Georgia; Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia and others) in 2017-2018. The activities provided by the abovementioned Action Plan were planned by the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection of Georgia, involving various agencies, local or international NGOs working on issues of persons with disabilities, the association of persons of children with disabilities and directly persons with disabilities.
The document reflects the legislative framework regulating the sphere, challenges in terms of the access to culture for disabled persons, the problems of infrastructure adaptation, as well as cultural and arts events, inclusive cultural tourism, inclusive education and employment issues for people with disabilities.
The Roadmap activities have been planned based on the problems identified by the monitoring of the situational analysis/research, quantitative and qualitative data.”
Consequently, the “Action Plan for Equal Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Cultural and Creative Life, 2017-2018” was created.
In 2020, the Law of Georgia on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (6823-rs) entered into force, according to which “the state shall promote the realization of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities”, including the realization of cultural and intellectual opportunities.
According to the Government Programme 2021-2024 approved in 2020: “Access to culture will increase for the general public, especially the population of the regions, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, and will promote the development of creative skills of people with disabilities“.
The Ministry of Culture, Sport and Youth funds various projects with the participation of people with disabilities.
In the years 2015-2016, the activities of the Cultural Centre of the Union for Persons who are Blind and the Union for Persons who are Deaf of Georgia were promoted. In 2017 the Project “Inclusive Education in Georgian Museums” was implemented. Also, inclusive concerts, exhibitions, performances with the participation of people with disabilities were promoted and adapted versions of the films “Jay’s Wedding” and “I See the Sun” were created. There are various nongovernmental organizations of people with disabilities in Georgia, e.g. Inclusive Dance Development Centre, etc.
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