Safe Transportation for All: Keef Shaifha 6
On Thursday, November 20, 40 young men and women from Wasla project participated in Keef Shaifha sixth tour under the slogan: “Safe transportation for all”; The tour came from their belief in the necessity of adapting transportation for persons with disabilities and providing safe transportation. The tour targeted three main stations: Ministry of Transportation, Association of Owners of Driving Schools and Careem Company.
During the tour, three listening sessions were conducted, starting with the Ministry of Transportation in Gaza, which included a discussion and review of the Ministry’s role in improving the means of transportation in a way that contributes to facilitating the movement of persons with disabilities, failures and aspirations that the ministry is working on. A list of recommendations were presented during the session including traffic awareness, awareness programs for workers in the transportation sector about the needs and rights of people with disabilities, improving mechanisms for receiving complaints from the public, and developing road adaption plans in the Gaza Strip.
The second stop in the tour focused on the role of driving schools in promoting inclusive culture and facilitating safe transportation for people with disabilities. Participants sat down with the Association of Owners of Driving Schools as they showcased their role as a link between government agencies and driving schools, and mechanisms for special education for people with disabilities, tests, equipped vehicles and the association programs’ to increase awareness and improve service for people with disabilities and also included consensus to increase pressure to increase opportunities for people with disabilities to learn to drive vehicles by increasing equipped vehicles and the nature of providing the curriculum in an inclusive manner.
The role of the private sector in supporting the means of transportation for people with disabilities, training Careem Company drivers to accommodate disabilities, adapting Careem mobile application which is the largest in Palestine and the Arab region for personal transportation, providing privileges for people with disabilities to use vehicles through the application were the most prominent recommendations in the last stop of the tour, with representatives of Careem Company in the Gaza Strip.
Nareman Hwaihi, Wasla project coordinator, said: This tour comes as one of the tools implemented by Social Developmental Forum on social accountability, which would enhance the active participation of persons with disabilities in demanding their rights as stipulated in international covenants and treaties.
Naji Naji, one of the youth with disabilities who participated in the tour, talked about his experience “participating in the tour, I felt the true meaning of the term inclusion of people with disabilities in society. There was a great interest in the youth without disabilities in the issue of the adapting public transportation for persons with disabilities, and we learned about the role of official and unofficial bodies in facilitating the movement of persons with disabilities and meeting all their needs. I do hope that in the future, we see change after implementing the recommendations that I and my colleagues made.
It is noted that this tour comes within the activities of the Wasla project implemented by Social Developmental Forum in partnership with Medical Aid for Palestinians- MAP. The tour is also one of the tools that have been developed to enhance the role of youth in social accountability in Palestine and enhance dialogue with official and unofficial decision makers.