Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympic Committee, attending a two-day conference on the 2004 Paralympics in Kavouri Greece, said despite costly projects to make Athens more accessible to disabled people, attitudes in Greece must also change about the needs of those blocked by ordinary barriers.
Craven said, “there are some very good pavements in the city of Athens, but then we see that the edge of the pavement hasn’t got a ramp and then we find people parking across the ramp. We have to change attitudes as well”.
On the plus side, Craven praised an estimated $255-million (U.S.) program to install ramps, smooth sidewalks and make other changes in Athens. But he said, “a lot of small works have to be done” in Athens and around Greece.
Evangelos Venizelos, Greece’s culture minister and a top Athens 2004 official, called the Paralympics perhaps “even more important” than the Olympics “because they have to do with a category of our co-citizens who struggle much more to have results and because the adjustment of the country for the Paralympic Games is one of the most important legacies”.
Meanwhile, the first retail items with the Paralympic Games’ emblem went on sale in all Olympic stores in Greece yesterday. They include T-shirts, ties, scarves, caps, mouse pads, pens, a souvenir card and a Games poster.
Other Olympic items to be sold in the future include bags and backpacks, sox, umbrellas, beachwear, and flip flops.
