Assessing the Level of Accessibility of Memorial Parks by the Visually Impaired a Case Study of Bomb Blast Memorial Park, Nairobi

Abstract

The inclusive design was a concept of late Architect Ronald Mace. Inclusivity is all about developing products and environments that can accommodate everybody regardless of their age, gender or ability status. Inclusivity of the visually impaired community has been corrupted largely especially in public environments. Inclusive environments for the visually impaired means that the environment should be free from different types of barriers and limitations that may hinder them from performing their tasks in the most effective way possible. Visual impaired people require assistive technology such as cane, service animals, braille signage, tactile surface, even steps/provision of ramps, change of color for those with low vision so that they may recognize change of the environment. This research aimed at finding different barriers that may affect the visually impaired as they use public spaces especially parks and in this case the Bomb Blast Memorial Park. Most of the nations in the world have not applied inclusive design in parks. US government has however made laws on provision of accessible parks but has still not met the standard. Africa is coming up with South Africa being the first nation in Africa to introduce accessibility in parks. South Africa has experimented on one botanical garden and it has turned out to help people with different abilities access the park, especially the blind. It is believed that making contact with nature can help improve the wellbeing of an individual and also help in improving one’s health at the same time. Giving a chance to the disabled communities to access these facilities means that they are going to have lesser trips to the hospitals because they can now connect with nature. The research data was collected by use of questionnaires, guided interviews, observations and google forms and the analysis of data will be descriptive. Data was then be analyzed and presented.