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Access Expressed New England
A Cultural Access Directory
VSA arts affiliates in all six New England states have formed a partnership with the New England ADA & Accessible IT Center and the Adaptive Environments Center to update the popular Massachusetts directory of accessible cultural facilities and programs and expand its reach to the entire region.
Adaptive Environments and the New England ADA & Accessible IT Center have made the Cultural Access Directory the main focus for its fifth annual Incentive Grant Call for Proposals. Priorities are set annually by the Regional Advisory Board. Six grants of $3000 each will be awarded, and only one grant will be awarded in each state. This is again a single priority initiative to help support a regional collaboration between the New England ADA & Accessible IT Center and the six New England VSA Arts.
The project will increase the physical and program access for people with disabilities to the arts and cultural programs of the region. A specific group of cultural resources is identified for inclusion in the directory. The selection criteria are based on the capacity to gather the physical and programmatic information and set clear goals, but more importantly the project should attract and train additional people with disabilities to participate in cultural access surveys.
More than 20 organizations and individual partners have committed themselves to helping with the task of surveying the region's premier facilities for accessibility to people with disabilities. The directory will include all the information you will need to decide if a particular museum, concert hall or historic site can accommodate you. The new publication will be ready by the end of 2001.
This effort is part of VSA arts' National Cultural Access Initiative. People who would like to help can attend a training program in their state to learn how to conduct a Cultural Access Survey. As the information is collected it will be available at www.AccessExpressed.net. You can visit the site now and see hundreds of programs already listed.
To suggest an organization that should be part of the directory or to join the effort yourself contact VSA arts of Massachusetts at 617-350-7713 (Voice) or 617-350-6836 (TTY) or leave a message for us at the web site.