Education
The most important thing for guiding people who have special needs is to treat them equally as you would treat any other tourist. Certainly, some things require extra knowledge and these essentials are collected here. If you are interested about being a guide at DiversiGO, then you can apply by writing an email to diversigotours@gmail.com and during the selection process you will receive some further tips about guiding before our trial walk.
Fundamental knowledge to guide tourists who have visual impairment
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 you definitely shouldn’t force anything. Since the standard guiding technique is not ideal for everyone, it is very important to ask the tourist’s preferences at the very beginning of the walk. You should also ask for feedback while walking. The following video authentically illustrates the standard guiding technique of a visually impaired person.
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. You should also ask if the pace is comfortable. If you want to fit in a tight space, the sighted person goes in front and they can indicate this by bending their elbow and placing their guiding arm 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 on the given object. It is possible to deviate from the common guiding techniques if needed. 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.
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 or felt with other senses is often better, no matter how accurately it is described verbally. Be sure to leave time for everyone, 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 blonde”, “the tall one”, do not refer to blind people as ”the blind”, if necessary, use ”the blind person” instead.
Fundamental knowledge to guide tourists with reduced mobility
People with reduced mobility can also 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, which is around a hundred kilograms, while a manual wheelchair can be lifted with relatively little effort. In the following authentic video, you can learn about pushing a manual wheelchair.
You don’t need to be too worried about anything when using expressions, because expressions such as “we are walking” are also said by people using wheelchairs. As we said before, in the same way that it is inappropriate to refer to a person with an adjective, you shouldn't refer to people with reduced mobility, such as “the disableds”, use ”disabled people” instead. And don't say "suffers from disability", or negative collocations, because no one likes to be pitied due to any of their attributes.
The most important thing for them 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 our routes, you can also browse some barrier-free locations on the website of Access4you, an organization dealing with accessibility validation. https://access4you.io/
Fundamental knowledge to guide tourists who have hearing loss
There are multiple categories of people with hearing loss based on their quality of hearing. Raising your voice and talking about the information at a place where the background noise is reduced can sometimes be enough. Furthermore, it is particularly important, especially if someone is reading your lips, that you turn towards them or the group while you are speaking. Only 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, so communication is key here as well to get feedback whether the tourists understand everything properly. Moreover, we note that the deaf people are also using expressions like "listening to a concert".
If needed and it is requested before booking, we will try to provide a sign language interpreter to any of our routes to translate the speech of our guides.