Beara Community School’s project aimed to raise awareness about the accessibility of services for disabled people. The group wanted to make life easier for disabled persons in their community through the provision of improved facilities in their school and in the locality.
The project also tackled the misuse of disabled services by non-disabled people and addressed the issue of how accessible the community actually is. By raising awareness around accessibility and facility provision, they felt a positive change could be made in the day to day life of a disabled person.
The STEM Response
The team created and developed an app that helps users to find disabled parking spaces. The app included a map displaying disabled parking spots in the area, a feature that can be incredibly useful for those who need to find and access such spaces.
The group collected information for the project by contacting the local council to gather maps and information about disabled parking spaces in the area. They also spoke to local business owners about the accessibility of their premises for disabled people.
The group also contacted Paul Ryan, who runs a wheelchair basketball tournament each year in conjunction with the Irish Wheelchair Association (IWA). The group organised wheelchair basketball in the school, in which students participated in wheelchair basketball and played matches against each other.
The Impact
The app provided local users with an extremely convenient and innovative way to find and access disabled parking spaces. The group distributed surveys to students in their school with results showing how people have witnessed others blocking or misusing disabled spaces. There were also replies from students who have also said that there are not enough disabled parking spaces in their area.
The team also responded to the issue by having a disabled parking spot installed in their school.
Beara Community School were rewarded for their efforts by picking up the Young Social Innovator’s “Making Our World More Inclusive and Poverty Free” 2015.
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