Rio Paralympics faces 'huge job' for wheelchairs sp rep

Preparations for the Rio Paralympics in 12 months are going well, except for one serious bump in the road: wheelchair access.

Rio 2016 organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada told AFP on Thursday that making Rio de Janeiro accessible for thousands of disabled athletes and spectators remains "a huge job."

The Paralympics, which start September 7, 2016, will last 11 days, featuring 4,350 athletes from 178 countries. The games are an increasingly high-profile sequel to the bigger Summer Olympics which take place earlier in the Brazilian city.

And in most respects, preparations are going according to schedule.

"We are on time, on target and on budget with the deliverables," Andrada said of the Paralympics.

The opening ceremony in the Maracana Stadium will be filled "with a lot of energy," celebrating "incredible people," artist Vik Muniz, one of the directors of the extravaganza, told a press conference.

But ironically, it's the basic job of getting competitors and fans to the venues that's puzzling organizers.

Many sidewalks in Rio are broken, making at best for a rough wheelchair ride, or they have no ramps, meaning the disabled person cannot move more than one block without help.

Access to public transport is spotty, while the kind of mass transport required for door-to-door delivery of Paralympic athletes and team members around the city is still missing.

The biggest vehicle currently in Rio with specialized access has a capacity for eight wheelchairs, Andrada said, while just "the Dutch delegation usually brings 150 wheelchair (reliant) people."'

"Just to accomodate the athletes, receive the athletes and help them in -- we have to make an effort," he said.

- Obstacle course -

Wheelchair users and advocates for the handicapped do not have encouraging news for the crowds of disabled people expected to flock to this picturesque and energetic, but often chaotic city.

"I think the city hasn't improved at all with how we deal with these people," Teresa Costa d'Amaral, from the Brazilian Institute for Rights of Disabled People, or IBDD, said.

"There have been small improvements in some neighborhoods, while in others it's worse."

She said the biggest culprits are ramps at sidewalks, which are frequently either missing or built so badly that they are not level with the sidewalk that the wheelchair-bound person is trying mount.

Another glitch is having "ramps on one side of the street, but not the other."

"It's very difficult for a person to cross this city without assistance," d'Amaral said.

Sonia Rubano, who lives in Rio with a severely disabled eight-year-old daughter, told AFP "the ramps are difficult and the sidewalks don't have space."

But she also echoed a common complaint that Brazil's public considers the handicapped as second-class citizens.

"People don't treat them with respect," she said.

- Changing for the better -

Andrada hopes the Paralympics will change those attitudes.

As promised in their bid to host the games, Rio is building 60 kilometers (40 miles) of new wheelchair-accessible sidewalk.

"But you have to understand it's not 60 kilometers of accessible sidewalks that will make Rio an accessible city," Andrada said.

"Part of the work we need to do is raising the consciousness of the people, creating energy in society to put pressure on the government so they can really invest on that. That's the goal."

Another member of the opening ceremony team, writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, has a personal interest in that struggle: he has been in a wheelchair since an accident more than 35 years ago.

Accessibility is "something we're going to talk about in the opening ceremony," he told AFP. "That is the main question."
Source: AFP