Our walks are fantastic experiences for our guides as well! You can help others and show the wonders of Budapest and talk about its remarkable sights and hidden miracles.
At DiversiGO, you can also guide tourists with visual, mobility, or hearing impairments. The most important thing is that they are also like any other tourist, just some things require extra knowledge. The essentials of this knowledge are collected here. You will find the materials that will help you to increase the experience provided by your walks below
Visually impaired people can be classified into several categories based on their vision. Furthermore, everyone has their own preferences, someone feels safe when they are the active party, and for someone the opposite is true. If, for example, someone comes with a guide dog, that person may not even ask for help for most of the walk and like in this case you definitely shouldn’t force anything. Since there is no such thing as a uniformly appropriate guiding technique, it is very important to ask the tourist’s preferences at the very beginning of the walk. You could also ask for feedback on anything while walking. The following video authentically illustrates the standard guiding technique of a visually impaired person.
Communicate!
It is also important to communicate while walking, to indicate if there is an obstacle or if there are stairs ahead or the stairs just ended. Also use the words “down” and “up” for stairs, and if there is a handrail, say so. It is also important to ask if the pace is comfortable. It is possible to deviate from the common guiding techniques if needed, although it is not recommended. For example, if someone were to lead two visually impaired people, then they can walk on both sides of the guide. And if there are even more tourists, then the sighted person can lead the visually impaired people who are holding each other’s shoulders and standing behind each other. It is important to point out that if you want to fit in a tight space, the sighted person goes in front and can indicate this by bending their elbows and placing their hands slightly behind their back. If we want to show something, be it a statue or a seat, then after consent, move the visually impaired person’s hand and place it on the given object.
Talk about things in detail!
Narration plays a highly important role during the walks. If the tourist prefers it, then narrating the events around you, even traffic situations, or drawing attention to small everyday things increases the quality of their experience. Describing the source of some interesting sounds, like what kind of a street band is playing nearby is recommended as well. Furthermore, a detailed description of your surroundings is crucial, for example what colors and exactly what decorations and features are on a wall. Anything that can be touched is often better, no matter how accurately it is described verbally. Be sure to leave time for everyone to touch everything, don’t rush.
Furthermore, you should not worry much about the use of expressions, for example blind people also use expressions such as “watching TV” or “reading a book”. In addition, referring to a person with an adjective is inappropriate, such as “the blondes”, “the tall ones”, do not refer to blind people as “the blind”, use „the blind people” instead
Disabled people can be classified into several categories based on their ability of physical mobility and they can use several types of devices to facilitate transportation. Depending on this, they also require different amounts of external help, which is why prior communication is highly important. Electric wheelchairs are usually handled alone, and assistance is usually required for active wheelchairs, i.e. wheelchairs pushed by hand, also called manual wheelchairs. Especially on slopes or at uneven roads, or if an obstacle occurs. However, you should only help when the tourist using a wheelchair agrees to it, because there are people who even prefer going up on relatively steeper slopes with a manual wheelchair entirely by themselves. Our walks are designed to contain little to no slopes, so you don’t have to worry about the case of the steep slopes, which would require a greater strength from the helpers to go up on. It is useful to know that it is practically impossible to lift an electric wheelchair due to its weight of around a hundred kilos, while a manual wheelchair can be lifted with relatively little effort. In the following authentic video, you learn about pushing a manual wheelchair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI10mBtsbu0
You don’t need to be too worried about anything when using expressions, because expressions such as “we were walking” are also used by people using wheelchairs. In addition, in the same way that it is inappropriate to refer to a person with an adjective, such as “the blondes”, “the tall ones”, do not refer to people with mobility impairments, such as “the disabled”, use „the disabled people” instead. The most important thing is that the route should be barrier free, or everyone should be able to move forward missing smaller not barrier free details. Of course, we have taken care of these during the creation of all our routes, so no one will miss out on anything.
In addition to these, you can browse barrier-free locations on the site of Access4you, an organization dealing with accessibility validation.
There are multiple categories of hearing impaired people based on their quality of hearing. Raising your voice and talking about the information at a place where the background noise is reduced can be enough sometimes. Furthermore, it is particularly important, especially if someone is reading your lips, that you turn towards them or the group when you are speaking, before or after you introduce something that requires you to turn away from them. Nowadays lots of people have hearing aids or hearing implants, so they can hear your voice clearly. Communication is key here as well to get feedback whether the tourists understand everything properly.
It is not a criterion, but a big plus when a guide of ours knows any sign languages.
When needed, our tourists can choose those guides who know the sign language of the language of the walk. Before booking and according to a prior agreement, if the tourists request a sign language interpreter to accompany any DiversiGO guide, then if possible we can invite a sign language interpreter from an external organization.
Our walks are fantastic experiences for our guides as well! You can help others show the wonders of Budapest and tell about its fantastic sights and hidden wonders.
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