Fingal County Council, along with 19 other local authorities, will support local disabilities groups as they hit the streets on Make Way Day, which is taking place on Thursday September 26.
The groups will provide friendly reminders not to:
• Park on the footpath
• Forget your bins or use illegal sandwich boards
• Carelessly park bikes on the street
Read more at https://bit.ly/2m2uyWr
“Make Way Day” is a campaign that brings the disability and wider community together to consider the needs of people with disabilities in the public spaces we all share.
It is led by the Disability Federation of Irelandand is a unique collaboration across Ireland and the voluntary and local government sectors. But most of all it’s about people with disabilities.
But everyone can get involved. And everyone should get involved because we’ve discovered thoughtlessness is the big issue. We’ve complied a terrible top three of obstacles that stop people with disabilities in their tracks.
- Cars parked on footpaths
- Bicycles illegally parked
- Bins left on footpaths
The revolution starts with you!
Most people are unaware of the problems these behaviour cause and we’ve found a friendly reminder is enough to get most people to change.
‘Make Way Day’ is not about pointing the finger at local authorities, other agencies or random scattered activism. The whole point of the day is making the public aware of an issue which in fully within their power to change. It’s about One impactful, coordinated and decisive day of action.
Leading the charge are people with disabilities. Local authorities and disability organisations supply low adhesive stickers that are used to mark obstacles. “Hey, this blocks my way!” is our message. So, on 26thSeptember each year obstacles that block the way and complicate the lives of people with disabilities for 365 days of the year are highlighted.
Better yet photos and videos are taken and posted and shared on social media using #MakeWayDay and #MakeWayDayTOWN. Our campaign and campaign video went viral in 2017 and one million people saw and shared posts last year.
Access is the most basic of all disability rights. The public footpaths are for everyone and we can all agree on that. In a wider context this one day focuses the mind on people with disabilities, their lives and needs.
The event will take place this year on Thursday September 26th, 2019 with support so far from 19 local authorities, details here, http://makewayday.com/.
The campaign was phenomenally successful last year, reaching over 1,000,000 people on social media and appearing on RTE news bulletins across the day.
