Portacomaro is a small town in Monferrato with an active local network, yet real communicative, organisational and cultural barriers still limit how fully people with disabilities can take part in community life. What the area needs is not more goodwill but real skills, tools and universal design practices, so accessibility becomes a shared, structural responsibility rather than an afterthought.
People with disabilities continue to face communicative, cognitive, sensory, organisational and cultural barriers that limit their access to information, services and opportunities to participate on equal terms with everyone else.
The project
"Paese Aperto" works to make spaces, services, information and events genuinely accessible through universal design and co-design carried out directly with people with disabilities, recognising them as protagonists in decisions that affect them rather than passive recipients of solutions designed elsewhere.
A dedicated Participatory Accessibility Group maps barriers across ten locations in town, developing 25 to 30 accessible tools and training 80 to 100 people, from residents to local shopkeepers and administrators. Public trials and a replicable methodological kit are designed so the model can spread to other communities facing the same gaps.
Who the project is for
The project's direct beneficiaries number around 225 people: 45 people with disabilities, 20 families, 80 students, 20 teachers, and 60 among operators, volunteers, administrators, shopkeepers and other local actors involved in the activities.
Its impact reaches further, to around 200 citizens of the wider local community, who benefit from a more accessible and inclusive town.
Project name: Paese Aperto - Portacomaro accessibile
Proposing organisation: Anita e i suoi fratelli APS
Area of intervention: Inclusion & Social Development
Country: Italy