Handbook for welcoming and supporting people with disabilities @Brussels Museums

Brussels is a city of incredible diversity, where every nook and cranny exudes history, culture and art. And for this cultural wealth to be fully appreciated, it is up to us, as professionals, to learn about the needs of our audiences.

At Brussels Museums, we believe in the power of the collective. So with the whole team at Brussels museums and the 33 museums taking part in Museum Night Fever 2023: we’re off!

What better project than MNF to make as many of Brussels’ museums as possible accessible in a festive, offbeat atmosphere?

For this 16th edition, MNF and Open Museum have taken a bold step to reconcile museums, parties and accessibility. Following an audit by the non-profit organisation Access-i, we set out to provide as much information as possible on accessibility. For example, each museum filled in an accessibility sheet, which was published on the Museum Night Fever website. And a system of pictograms has been put in place to communicate the different levels of accessibility of venues and activities. In addition to the full publication of this information, a team of accessibility volunteers was set up to complement the museums’ systems. These volunteers were trained in advance of the event to give our visitors the best possible welcome.

As an extension of this awareness-raising session, a short guide was drawn up to guide the accessibility volunteers during the evening.

Today, we are delighted to share with you this “Little manual for welcoming and accompanying people with disabilities”. The purpose of this guide is to give practical advice and recommendations to anyone wishing to provide the best possible welcome to all our visitors with special needs. We invite you to discover this handbook and share it with your networks. Together, we can make our museums welcoming places for everyone, where everyone feels included, appreciated and respected.

The handbook is available in fr-nl-en.
EN – Handbook for welcoming and supporting people with disabilities

NL – Handleiding voor het onthaal en begeleiding van mensen met een beperkin

FR – Manuel pour l’accueil et l’accompagnement des personnes en situation de handicap

Don’t hesitate to use it and pass it on to colleagues who are in contact with visitors and to your volunteers.