Community Life

Handisup organized a cultural outing on May 12th 2007. The destination was chosen by our volunteers: PARIS. Our goal for this outing was to provide students with a great, knowledgeable and cultural adventure in Paris.

We planned to visit two cultural establishments between the Louvre, Cité des Sciences, Musée d'Orsay and Arts Premier Museum Quai Branly.

After researching the accessibility of these venues, we chose the Cité des Sciences at Villette Park and Musée d'Orsay.
 

The accent was placed predominately on accessibility of transport as well as the cultural visits. A car had been provided from Belgium and was equipped with an elevator. This made it possible for everyone to partake in the excursion.

The chosen museums were very much accessible to all students, whatever the disability. In fact, at the Cité des Sciences, the majority of the information was provided in brail and on films containing sub titles.

At the Orsay Museum, the guided tour was provided by a lecturer trained in communication with deaf and those hard of hearing. There were also 16 volunteers available to help with any specific needs.
 

“Without reservation, museums will only accept people with disabilities certain week days. Our excursion was on a Saturday!”

Discrimination...
 

At the Villette, the participants were able to visit 3 exposition : “L'Homme et les gênes, changer d'être et les nanotechnologies”. Before heading to the Musée d'Orsay, we grabbed a bite at the restaurant “Le Hublot”, which is situated in the heart of the Cité des Sciences with a beautiful view of a giant aquarium. The students received a guided tour concentrated on the theme of “The great works of the Musée d'Orsay”. They had the chance to discover or rediscover the works of Van Gogh, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, etc. Ten other people visited the museum at their own pace with an audio guide.

Surreal !

“At the Cité des Sciences, the students were asked to show their disability cards in order to use the elevators. Clearly, we refused and used the elevators anyway !”

Snack time

After enjoying a little snack, our day finished with a journey around Paris in the autocar. We explored the Champs-Elysées, Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde and of course, the Tour Eiffel.

Big thanks to Alexis, Anne-Emilie, Brigitte, Cécile, Céline, Charlotte, Elise, Emilie, Eric, Flavien, Gaël, Jean-François, Marie, Ségolène, Simon, Vanessa for their helping hands with this project !