Two years in the past Haraldur þorleifsson needed to sit outdoors a store in his native Iceland, unable to go inside along with his spouse and younger son as a result of there was no wheelchair entry.
“I started to think about all the times I’ve waited outside places, isolated and alone,” he mentioned.
It did not take lengthy for the entrepreneur – who not too long ago bought his digital design firm to Twitter – to come back to the conclusion that fixing this drawback could be a matter of “changing one or two steps,” to make on a regular basis life much less difficult for individuals with bodily disabilities.
His brainwave second lead him to create Ramp Up Iceland, and embark on a quest to construct ramps all throughout the Nordic nation, to permit individuals in wheelchairs to get to beforehand inaccessible places.
Two 12 months purpose for constructing ramps
Since its launch, Ramp Up has already constructed greater than 450 ramps, and goals to finish a minimum of a thousand over the course of the subsequent two years.
The ramps are put in in every kind of locations, from outdoors hairdressers and eating places, to dentists and ice cream parlours.
“Our biggest project so far has been creating Iceland’s first accessible gas station. We altered the height of the pumps, raised the ground and renovated the inside through changing the toilets for example,” þorleifsson instructed Euronews.
To fund the mission, Ramp Up has raised round €3.5 million, with þorleifsson investing his personal cash in addition to attracting non-public and company backers.
His activism has even seen him named Icelander of the Year in 2022.
Iceland’s disabled-access legal guidelines
Iceland’s parliament – Alþingi – handed a legislation in 2012 which requires all new-builds to supply disabled entry. Nonetheless, the legislation is just not retroactive, which implies that it doesn’t lengthen to revamping outdated buildings.
And that is a authorized stance which þorleifsson disagrees with: “people say you can’t make some buildings accessible, but even the Colosseum has an elevator in it.”
“We need people like this who make changes and decide that it’s more important to make these places accessible than to leave them completely unchanged.”
On prime of this, new-builds don’t all the time adjust to laws.
“It’s not more expensive to build places properly the first time round, but it does take a lot of effort to change them retroactively,” he added.
Incapacity entry throughout Europe
Having lived overseas for a few years, þorleifsson, who was recognized with a muscular atrophy dysfunction aged two, was struck by the dearth of incapacity accessibility in Iceland.
“Iceland hasn’t been spending enough money on disabled people, I always have to call ahead when going out – whereas I’ve lived in places where you don’t need to do this kind of planning ahead.”
Journey is a specific problem for individuals dwelling throughout Europe with bodily disabilities. Amsterdam, Paris and London had been topped Europe’s most accessible locations in a survey launched by the enterprise collective Helpful 500.
Nonetheless, þorleifsson has observed that accessibility in Europe typically varies in accordance with how rich a area is, ‘”for instance disabled access in the South of Italy is terrible, whereas it is far better in the North of Italy, which is a rich region and a tourist hotspot.”
How does Ramp Up work?
If businesses want to upgrade their own wheelchair access they can submit applications directly to Ramp Up, but þorleifsson’s crew additionally goes out on scouting missions to search out potential places.
Ramp Up then supplies the supplies in addition to the manpower for putting in the ramps, and a quick turnaround normally means it takes the crew just some days between figuring out a ramp spot and putting in it.
“We go out across the country in teams to try and find places which are in need of better accessibility,” mentioned þorleifsson, who has huge plans for the impression his mission can have in his homeland.
“By the end of the next two years, pretty much every single big and small town in Iceland will have some kind of ramp.”
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