In the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 Ente Nazionale Sordi has decided to do its bit with the Accessible Museums for Deaf People project or MAPS for short. The project was the brainchild of the ENS (National Association for the Deaf) central office and is co-funded by the Department of Labour and Social Policies. Its goals are twofold:
Accessibitaly was thus created to achieve the first of these objectives: here deaf people can easily access a complete list of cultural sites at which they can fully experience art in all its profound emotions in a single virtual space.
The museum accessibility training course, on the other hand, was set up to get deaf people actively involved in the Italian cultural panorama. In the 20 phases of the course the young deaf participants learnt the theories, language, techniques and fundamental strategies underlying museum accessibility from four expert sector teachers with an eye to the specific needs of deaf people. In its long journey from Trento to Palermo, the MAPS course touched on some of the most important museums and cultural sites in Italy and got 400 young deaf people involved.
