‘MakeWayDay’ coming your way next week

CORK County Council is among 15 Councils supporting the first ever National Make Way Day, a day of action initiated by the Disability Federation of Ireland.

The people of Cork can expect to see the friendly MakeWayDay stickers appearing around towns and villages, reminding everyone to make way for people with a disability. Disability groups, organisations and campaigners will hit the streets to draw attention in a fun way to the challenges posed by items being thoughtlessly left on the footpath.

The campaign hopes to highlight the everyday obstacles faced by people with disabilities such as cars or vans parked on a footpath blocking the way, bicycle/motorbikes chained to lampposts creating a trip hazard for a visually impaired person and illegally placed sandwich boards, forgotten bins, barrels and other obstructions.

Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy, who is a wheelchair user received unanimous support from Cork County Elected Members in his motion to participate in the Make Way Day campaign.

“I am committed to driving forward the introduction of Make Way Day in order to highlight the everyday physical obstacles that 13% of the Irish population face when trying to navigate the streets of our towns and villages here in Cork,” he said.

He said: “Quite often it is a genuine lack of awareness and what Make Way Day sets out to achieve is for all of us to take a second to think of what we are doing and be conscious of the public spaces we all share.”

County groups taking part include Castlemartyr Family Carers and Disability Support Group, Bantry Age Friendly, Irish Wheelchair Association Mallow, IRD Duhallow and West Cork Partnership. This will take place on Wednesday, September 25.

The campaign will also comprise a one day social media blitz with posts trending the hashtags #MakeWayDay and #MakeWayCork. Cork people can join the movement by taking their own photos and videos of any obstacles they come across and sharing them on social media.