The Holodomor Museum became the first on the list of the most accessible museums in Ukraine

11 November 2021

 Project  Inclusive Travels defined the most accessible museums of Ukraine.

All 5 museums, that have the best conditions for receiving people with disabilities and low-mobility visitors, are located in Kyiv.

Detailed information on the conditions of accessibility of about 400 museums in Ukraine was collected in 4 months by the project “Inclusive Travels in Ukraine: accessibility of museums of Ukraine”, which is implemented with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. The analysis of the obtained data allowed the project experts to identify the 5 most accessible museums of Ukraine.

  1. The National Museum of the Holodomor Genocide (Kyiv).
  2. NCAMC “Mystetskyi Arsenal” (Kyiv).
  3. National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War (Kyiv).
  4.  Museum “Making Ukrainian Nation” (Kyiv).
  5. Museum of Kyiv History (Kyiv).

All these museums, at least, have a barrier-free adjacent territory and entrance, accessible interiors, adapted exhibits and inclusive toilets.Their positions in the list are determined by considering the quality of the basic accessibility items and the number of additional items.

The presented list is not a formal rating, as it is based on monitoring information and not on the results of an expert audit.The presented list is not a formal rating, as it is based on monitoring information and not on the results of an expert audit.

The research methodology was developed by the ORFO universal design studio with participation of the NGO Chernivtsi Association “Zahyst”. The electronic questionnaire prepared to assess the level of accessibility of the museum institution became the main tool of monitoring, which was carried out in several stages. At the first stage, e-mails were sent to the addresses of 1,500 museums in Ukraine with a request to fill out a questionnaire, as well as an additional telephone survey of most of them. At  the second stage, more than 30 volunteers monitored about 100 important museums in different regions of Ukraine, from which, for various reasons, the project did not receive completed questionnaires.

It should be noted, that the collecting of information during these stages was unqualified, since it didn’t require expert estimates, but only the recording of actual data: presence/absence of certain elements, measured sizes, and angles, photo fixation. Expert accessibility audits were performed by experts according to the methodology developed by them in 10 museums. Experts also analyzed the monitoring data obtained from museums and volunteers to summarize statistics and identify the most accessible museums in Ukraine.

More details on the monitoring results will be available soon on the website https://travels.in.ua , which is currently under development. It will contain information about museums in all regions of Ukraine with a detailed description of the conditions for receiving visitors from among low-mobility groups at each facility, as well as a simple and convenient system for their search and selection on various criteria of inclusiveness and other parameters. The collection of information will be also continued, so the list of the most accessible museums may change according to the information, that will be provided by others further.

The aim of the project is to inform the interested audience about museum institutions in Ukraine, that are ready to receive different categories of visitors now, that are already working in this direction, and the ones, that are still not accessible enough.