Maltese youths become tourists not by chance

Six Maltese youths with intellectual disability recently visited Venice as part of the project Turisti Non Per Caso (Tourists, Not By Chance) whose goal is to create easy-to-read travel guidebooks for a city in each of the project’s participating countries.

The aim of the visit was for the youths from the Equal Partners Foundation (Malta) and three other NGOs from Italy, Hungary and the Czech Republic to experience using a guidebook to provide input for it to be easy to follow and accessible to people with intellectual disabilities, literacy and learning difficulties, people who are not well-travelled and young children on school trips. During the visit, the youths were accompanied by professionals from the partner organisations.

The trip to Venice was the first step in a year-long process, whereby the youths taking part in the project are conducting research on a city in their own country and acting as editors to produce a guidebook on it.

Once completed, the youths visit the cities of the other participants’ countries to test the guidebooks.

The Maltese youths will be preparing a guidebook on Valletta.

The guidebooks will also be tested by other people with intellectual disabilities, people with literacy difficulties, and other foreigners who do not speak the native language.

At the end of the project, the guidebooks will be made available online and as a smartphone application.

Equal Partners Foundation is a parent-run, non-profit organisation founded in 1999 which provides support for people with disabilities and intellectual difficulties.