Among the proposals for accessible tourism in Emilia-Romagna, there are many projects that favor people with limited mobility or sensory disabilities such as blindness.

Auditory disability, meanwhile, affects around 100 thousand people Italy (65 thousand of which experience extreme deafness), but there are shockingly few projects that involve them, and none in the area of tourism.

Members of the deaf community, particularly young deaf people, have become ever more active thanks to new technologies such as Skype video calls and vlogs (visual blogs). They have asked the Italian Government to officially recognize LIS (Italian Sign Language), and are also very responsive towards anyone who shows any level of interest in them.

Bologna is a good city for this type of activity. Initiatives such as ”Bar senza nome” (the first, and still only, café in Italy managed by deaf people) are also appreciated by people who can hear, even those inexperienced with LIS, proving that the two worlds can melt together into a single experience.

With our LIS Project, Succede solo a Bologna inaugurates the first tourist activity in Bologna that addresses this community, allowing Emilia-Romagna to be put among the first Italian regions to occupy itself with accessible tourism projects, taking care to respect social needs while also meeting the demands of an ever wider scope, promoting a new idea that is also attractive for tourism at a global level.

This project has been fully inserted into Succede solo a Bologna’s politics for territorial and cultural marketing, not only within “Bar senza nome” (where we have a table that illustrates certain signs translated into Bolognese), but also in our publication of “Bolognese for all” (2013), in which a page has been dedicated to the typical signs for daily life in Bologna.

Creators and organizers:

Succede solo a Bologna, LIS interpreter Margherita Cavallari, and our guides possessing the regional license for this profession.

Groups/partners that we would like to include in collaborations:

Municipality of Bologna (Department of Economics and Promotion of the city of Bologna;

Kindergarten, primary, and secondary schools

The National Deaf Organization

The Gualandi Foundation

THE PROJECT:

This project organizes a series of visits to the main monuments and sites in Bologna that are enjoyable for both the hearing and the deaf. The goal is not only to share knowledge about Bologna in a way that is entertaining for deaf people, but to do so with the deaf and the hearing participating side by side for this shared experience. An initiative that has never before been attempted.

We do not want this to be an exclusive tour only for deaf people, but a tour that brings the deaf and the hearing together to enjoy together through social integration and the promotion of tourism.

GOALS: