All visitors should have access to museum services and products without exception. The Khanenko Museum began to develop its inclusion programme in 2008. Since then, the museum's team has been constantly providing people with disabilities with the opportunity for a full life and personal development.
2019. The first accessible museum website in Ukraine was created, developed in compliance with international standards of inclusive IT design in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and presented in the form of master classes where leading experts shared their knowledge on creating accessible documents, tables, and presentations.
2020. On the occasion of the Museum Day, the first video in a series of descriptions of the museum's exhibits in Ukrainian sign language by Oleksii Nashyvochnikov, architect and chairman of the Kyiv Union of Deaf Artists "Inspiration", was presented online. Work in this area will continue in 2024.
2020: Guided tours in easy language were introduced and an information booklet in easy language and an educational brochure "I'm Going to the Museum" were published.
2021: The joint project of the museum, the Atelier Normalno workshop for artists with and without Down syndrome, and the Troyanda Design Studio "It's OK for Me" was presented, in which a team of Khanenko Museum specialists created a platform for sharing experiences of social inclusion. In March-May 2023, the Khanenko Museum presented the exhibition "Meanwhile in the Khanenko House", which included artists with intellectual disabilities and PTSD, among others. And their friends, in particular from the Atelier Normalno workshop, were guests of our museum.
2022-2023: For blind and visually impaired people, 3 tactile copies of ceramics, 2 plastic albums (17 tactile copies of objects from the museum's collection each), and 2 special tactile maps to help them navigate in space were developed and implemented.
Audio guides (for children and adults) and cue codes were also recorded to help learn more about individual exhibits;
Published: a practical guide "Museum Unites: Art Therapy Sessions in the Museum Space to Build the Microsociety of a Person with Intellectual Disability" (2014), guidelines "Accessibility of Museums for People with Intellectual Disabilities" (2020), a booklet "Accessible Website", etc.
It should be noted that with the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some of these programmes and services had to be suspended. Instead, we have created and continue to work on creating and implementing new products that take into account accessibility needs.
It should be noted that with the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some of these programmes and services had to be suspended. Instead, we have created and continue to work on creating and implementing new products that take into account accessibility needs. In particular, in spring 2022, we opened the Museum Yard as an additional space.
2024: We plan to continue the operation of the Museum Yard.
To continue its work in the field of accessibility and inclusiveness, the Khanenko Museum studies the best practices of world museums and invites everyone to join the creation and implementation of our programmes. In particular, the museum engages volunteers, including a speech therapist and a psychologist. They were inspired by the Khanenko Museum's existing inclusivity and accessibility programmes, which means that all our previous products in this area have been successful and have brought results.
As you know, the Khanenko Museum is located in historic buildings, which makes it difficult to create the right conditions for accessibility. We are already thinking about the new architecture of the museum space. To do this, we held an architectural workshop together with UNESCO and the Union of Architects of Ukraine, where we talked about safety and barrier-free access not only for our museum but also for other cultural institutions that have faced a similar accessibility problem.
Today, the Khanenko Museum is a kind of "recovery environment" for many people. And we should already be thinking about how our society will change after the war, given how many people will need both psychological and physical help. We plan to add rehabilitation opportunities for the military to our programmes. To do this, we plan to cooperate with social centres and take into account their advice and experience that they already have in their rehabilitation methods.