Terra Mirabilis

Corina Sibianu/ January 15, 2019/ Projects, Terra Mirabilis

Terra Mirabilis: Tourist Tracks for Visually Impaired Young People

The local project Terra Mirabilis will take place in the city of Cluj, between April 7 and November 30, 2014. Though it has a local character, the project has a national and international follow-up. In this regard, the main objectives of Terra Mirabilis support the programmes “Cluj-Napoca: European Youth Capital 2015” and also the project “Cluj-Napoca: European Capital of Culture 2021”.

Beneficiaries, the target group of the project, are a number of 12 young boys and girls with visual disabilities. who come from different backgrounds and speak English at an average level. Alongside this project beneficiaries there will be a number of 8-12 volunteers.

Terra Mirabilis aims to achieve material support and volunteer personnel qualifications required for future national and international youth exchanges involving visually impaired young people.

The material support to be achieved consists of travel guides, maps and promotional materials that allow a person or group of persons with visual disabilities that travel to the city of Cluj, from Romania or abroad, to cover a tourist track in the historical center of the city, in safety. The tourist track will contain the most iconic tourist attractions, monuments and places of worship and will emphasize the multicultural and multiethnic dimensions of the city. Material support, in Romanian and English, will be created both in standard print format and in formats suitable for people with visual disabilities: audio guides (MP3), prints in large character type, braille printing together with the innovative tactile diagrams for maps and pictures. Also, these materials will be published in digital format (PDF).

The project staff, volunteers and beneficiaries (target group), according to their personal skills, will perform the material support and will acquire and develop competencies that will allow them to safely accompany and guide the groups of visually impaired young (or not so young) people on the documented tourist track. Also they will acquire or develop competences in working with computers, ICT, social media platforms and printing in different formats.

To implement these goals and objectives, both volunteers and beneficiaries will participate in activities, which will be based mainly on elements of non-formal and informal education. Among the main activities, there are:
– Preparatory and teambuilding workshops.
– Workshops dedicated to planning, creating and developing competences required to safely accompany groups of visually impaired young people, to write a guide that takes into account the needs of people with visual disabilities, to transpose this guide in specific formats (audio guide, Braille, tactile diagrams, etc.), to create and manage the project website. These workshops will be led by qualified trainers with competences in the work with visually impaired, in creation of tourist guides suitable for such people. A final workshop will be devoted to the multicultural and multiethnic dimensions of Cluj and its belonging to European culture, workshop based on the knowledge gained by the participants, through the project. Also in this workshop will be a presentation of the EU programme Erasmus+.
– Actions in the city to identify the main objectives suitable for the proposed tourist track and to simulate a real visit in the historical center in which each participant will play one of two roles tourist guide / group with visual disabilities.
– Workshops for editing, publishing and implementing the proposed materials in specific formats, both in Romanian and English.
– Activities throughout the project to promote Terra Mirabilis in the local media by interviews, press releases, posts on websites, online forums, etc.
– Final activities for dissemination of project results, including visits to other centers for the blind and compiling a list of potential partners for future international exchanges for young people with visual disabilities.

Project participants will be visible on the website of the project and will be helped, where possible, to participate in specific training courses for youth leaders, social integration of young people with disabilities and tourism activities. Also there will be a certificate of voluntary.

Terra Mirabilis project partners:
– Special High School for Visually Impaired – Cluj-Napoca;
– City Hall of Cluj-Napoca – Tourist Information Center;
– Romanian Visually Impaired Association – Cluj Branch;
– Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania;
– Voluntary Center of Cluj-Napoca.
All these institutions through cooperation agreements signed will be involved with some of the necessary equipment (computers, printers) and with the expertise and experience they have on people with visual disabilities and fewer opportunities in general.

Terra Mirabilis project sponsor:
– Class Shoe Romania.