HOW GOETHE INSTITUTE CHANGED VENUE TO ACCOMMODATE A PERSONS WITH DISABILITY

In what seems to be in the spirit of leave no one behind; the Goethe Institute in Lagos recently changed a venue for its project management training course module 2 for organizations in the arts and cultural sector in lagos Nigeria due to the fact that the Centre for Contemporary Arts where the module 2 training was supposed to hold wasn’t accessible for a wheelchair user as it doesn’t have a lift. This singular act of kindness and commitment shows that Goethe Institute is in support of the principles of universal design that is contained in the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, and the sustainable development goals.

This is one of the major issues why people with disabilities are not involved the arts and cultural sector, even with its abundant potential to empower a vast majority. This is the first step towards mainstreaming their issues, especially now that there is a disability law in Nigeria. There are so many art spaces coming up in Lagos alone, but most of them are built in ways to suggest that people with disabilities don’t exist. This oversight has excluded millions of talents from the arts and creative space.

Article of 30 of the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities states clearly the need for people with disabilities to participate in the cultural, recreation, leisure, and sport. One way to ensure that this international instrument is fully domesticated in Nigeria is to ensure the implementation of the new disability law and to build the capacity of critical stakeholders in the arts and creative sector on issues of people with disabilities.